LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
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Shelf ..H-3-3 



1 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



i'-ii '■ Kf 



THE LEAVEN AT WORK; 



OR, 



SOME OF THE CONCESSIONS OF ORTHODOXY 



IN THE DIRECTION OF 



UNIVERSALIS 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



The kingdom of heaven resembles leaven that a woman took and 
concealed in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened. 

Jesus the Christ. 



^ U BY 



J. W7 HANSON, D.D. 




BOSTON: 

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 

1888. 






/£> 



$> 



Copyright, 1888, 
By The Universalist Publishing House. 



QHntbmsttn Press : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



5 'm apt to tfytnft tfje man 
STIjat coultf surrounfc ttye sum of things, anti spg 
&f)e ^art of (§oti anti secrets of ?§is empire, 
MEouto speak but lobe ; toitfy tym tije brtgf)t result 
OToultt tfjange tfre fjue of tntermetJtate scenes, 
&ntJ make one tljmfl of all tijeologir. 

Gambold. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

Introductory .......... iii 

I. The Creeds 7 

II. The Creeds Indorsed 22 

III. Evil Influence of the Creeds. ... 46 

IV. Vital Words, etc 59 

V. Consensus of Commentators .... 73 

VI. Influence of Literature 79 

VII. Stemming the Current 85 

VIII. The Theological Trend 91 

IX. Explicit Concessions 130 

X. Post-Mortem Probation 144 

XI. Universalism and its Advocates . . 152 

XII. Conclusion 163 

INDEX 173 



INTRODUCTORY. 

'T^HIS volume contains material illustrative of the 
reformation — revolution rather — that the now 
departing century has experienced and is experiencing 
in religious thought and opinion relative to human 
destin}\ The Reformation of Luther left untouched 
the fundamental errors of the mediaeval creeds, but 
it opened the flood-gates of light, and prepared the 
minds of men for the reformation of the Reformation, 
for the perception and reception of forgotten truths. 
Those truths are contained in germ in an accurate 
view of the Divine character, which necessitates the 
essentials of a genuine Christianity. 

When the first promulgators of Universalism as 
a distinct sj'stem, in its modern re- discovery, had 
reached the correct view of God as a Father, and 
discarded the idea then prevalent that he is a mere 
governor and executioner, they not only gave the 
world the germ of a new theodicy, but they deposited 
in the heart of Christendom an influence destined to 
give a new direction to all the currents of its life, a 
divine leaven whose fermentation was to transform, 
reform the beliefs of the Christian world. Already 
the most marvellous improvement has taken place. 



IV THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

" The handful of corn on the top of the mountain is 
shaking like Lebanon." 

It would be claiming too much to sa}' that the 
wonderful changes which have occurred are entirely 
due to the influence of Universalism. Other forces 
have been its allies and confederates. But it is true 
that much, if not most of the improvement origi- 
nated in our faith, and it is as true that no other doc- 
trine, no other equal number of religious reformers, 
ever produced so great a change in public opinion, 
ever accomplished so vast a reformation in religious 
thought in the same time, as has been produced by 
the Universalist Church in a single hundred years. 
And all the indications declare that what has been 
wrought is an infallible index pointing to the com- 
pletion of the work, which can only come when 
the Christian Church shall everywhere be based on 
the essential doctrines announced by Murray and 
Ballou. 

The differences between the old creeds and their 
ancient interpretations contained in the first part of 
this volume, and the many later expressions herein, 
quoted from their successors in the same sects, ex- 
hibit something of the progress that has taken place. 
No attempt has been made to philosophize or elab- 
orate. In fact, the author has sought to give as little 
of his own composition as possible, aiming rather to 
so present the words of others as to illustrate his 
theme in easy and popular form ; and he is confident 



INTRODUCTORY. V 

that the many quotations given indicate the tenden- 
cies of the times, and represent the condition of every 
intelligent community in the English-speaking world. 
For nothing can be more apparent to the observing 
eve than that the leaven of the gospel of universal 
grace is at work changing the old forms of theology 
and religion into its own likeness. 

It is a continual source of satisfaction to the believer 
in God's impartial goodness and universal grace to see 
that all the sects differing from his own have made 
and are making such constant progress toward his 
own cherished faith on the subjects pertaining to hu- 
man destiny. While most of the standard creeds have 
remained unchanged, the real and expressed opinions 
of those belonging to the churches representing them 
have been continually- modifying, liberalizing, ap- 
proaching his own sentiments. Every advance of 
scholarship has been toward the positions of Uni- 
versalist scholars ; ever3' new view taken has been 
in the direction of Universalist interpretations ; as 
the head has acquired intelligence, and as the heart 
has expanded, in all sects human intellect and hu- 
man s3 T mpathies have approached our conclusions ; 
and it needs no prophetic gift to see that the day is 
not far distant when the differences among Christians 
concerning man's ultimate destiny will be abolished, 
and when there will be substantial agreement among 
Christians on this vital subject of human thought. 
Already it can be truthfully said that there was never 



vi THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

a time since the first few years after the death of the 
Christ, when Christians were so near the simplicity 
and purity of his religion as they are to-day. And 
3 T et, when the work of reform was initiated by a few 
plain men, a century ago, the churches of Christen- 
dom, in their creeds, their pulpits, their literature, 
and well nigh universally among their communicants, 
accepted unchallenged and received without demur 
the monstrous errors that now only exist in the 
creeds, but that are repudiated by the people of all 
churches, — and by none more emphatically than is 
frequently done by those who still nominally accept 
the creeds that retain them. 

In order to know precisely what Partialism really 
is, it is not sufficient to ask some unfaithful, time- 
serving clergyman who semi-oecasionally, or never, 
announces the unpalatable tenets he has solemnly 
vowed to declare in season and out of season, but we 
must consult the accredited platforms of the various 
churches, and the utterances of those who have 
frankly avowed them. To this task we now proceed, 
first presenting the principal creeds, and then tracing 
the progress of thought in the churches professing 
them. 



THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CREEDS. 

XT THAT do the creeds and their authorized and 
candid exponents say of man's destiny? 
What are the doctrines actually obligatory, to-day, 
on the members of the dominant churches, as the}' 
are recorded in the creeds that have never been 
officially repudiated, — that are inscribed on the 
banners of the more prominent churches? 

I. The Presbyterian Creed. — The Westminster 
Confession of Faith, which is the basis of the 
Presb}'terian church, comprising eight-tenths of the 
people of Scotland, and a multitude in America and 
throughout the English-speaking world, will tell us. 
A century ago scarcely a member of that body could 
be found to question its statements. Now, however, 
there are many who, while they receive it for " sub- 
stance of doctrine," and " as a whole, " decline to 
accept its more monstrous features. In fact, it 



8 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

has become customary of late to receive into 
churches members who will not accept the creed, 
though all ministers are required to sign its state- 
ments antecedent to ordination. But even they — 
to judge by their subsequent preaching — sign it 
with much u equivocation and mental reservation." 
and with many different mental attitudes. 

Here are extracts from the " Confession of Faith/' 
with references to chapters and sections : — 

" By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, 
some men and angels are predestinated nnto everlasting life, 
and some foreordained to everlasting death (iii. 3). They whom 
God hath accepted in his beloved, effectually called and sancti- 
fied by his Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from 
the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the 
end, and be eternally saved (xvii. 1). Others not elected, 
although they may be called by the ministry of the word and 
may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never 
truly come to Christ, and therefore cannot be saved (x. 4). 
These angels and men, thus predestinated and preordained, are 
particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is 
so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or di- 
minished (iii. 4). Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, 
effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but 
the elect only (iii. 6). The rest of mankind God was pleased, 
according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, where by 
he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory 
of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to 
ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise 
of his glorious justice (iii. 7). Man by his fall into a state 
of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good 
accompanying salvation ; so, as a natural man, being altogether 
averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own 
strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto 



THE CREEDS. 9 

(ix. 3). As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God as 
a righteous judge for former sins doth blind and harden, from 
them he not only withholdeth his grace whereby they might 
have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought 
upon in their hearts, &c. (v. 6). By this sin they [our first 
parents] fell from their original righteousness and communion 
with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all 
the faculties and parts of soul and body. . . . They being the 
root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and 
the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their 
posterity descending from them, by ordinary generation. From 
this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, 
disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined 
to all evil, do proceed our actual transgressions (vi. 2, 3, 4). 
Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of 
the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth in its 
own nature bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound 
over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made 
subject to death, with all miseries, — spiritual, temporal, and 
eternal (vi. 6). Much less can men not professing the Chris- 
tian religion be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they 
ever so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of 
nature, and to the law of that religion they do profess ; and 
to assert and maintain that they may is very pernicious and to 
be detested (x. 4). Works done by unregenerate men, al- 
though for the matter of them they may be things that God 
commands, and of good use both to themselves and to others, 
yet because they proceed not from a heart purified by faith, nor 
are done in a right manner according to the word, nor to a right 
end, the glory of God, they are therefore sinful, and cannot 
please God or make a man meet to receive grace from God. 
And yet their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing 
unto God (xvi. 7 ; iii. ix. ; vi. 4). But the wicked who know 
not God, and obey not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast 
into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruc- 
tion from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his 
power (xxxiii. 2). [The " Larger Catechism " says, "cast into 



10 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

hell and be punished with unspeakable torments, both of body 
and soul, with the devil and his angels forever."] Elect infants, 
dying in infancy, are regenerated in Christ through the Spirit, 
who worketh when, and how, and where he pleaseth. . . . Others 
not elected . . . cannot be saved (x. 4)." 

The " Shorter Catechism," one of the Presbj'terian 
standards, declares : — 

" The covenant being made with Adam not only for himself, 
but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by 
ordinary generation sinned in him, and fell with him, in his 
first transgression. . . . The fall brought mankind into a state 
of sin and misery. . . . The sinfulness of that estate whereunto 
man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of 
original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, 
which is commonly called Original Sin ; together with all actual 
transgressions that proceed from it. . . . All mankind by their 
fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, 
and so made liable to all the sins and miseries of this life, to 
death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. . . . God having 
out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to 
everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver 
them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them 
into an estate of salvation by a Eedeemer." 

This election includes the doctrine that babes 
not elected are lost. One of the ministers who 
constructed the Catechisms called infants "fuel of 
hell," " sinking and swimming in the black lake." 
And the Moderator, in his " Vessels of Mercy and 
Wrath," says "thousands of infants are damned 
only for Sin Original." 

The "Larger Catechism" repeats the sentiment of 
one of the articles in the answer to Question 90 : 



THE CREEDS. 11 

"They, who, having never heard the Gospel, know not Jesus 
Christ, and believe not in him, cannot be saved, be they never 
so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature 
or to the law of that religion which they profess." 

These dogmas were reaffirmed, substantially, by 
the New School Presbyterians, in what is called 
the Auburn Declaration, even so late as a. d. 1837 : 

" While repentance for sin and faith in Christ are indispensa- 
ble to salvation, all who are saved are indebted, from first to 
last, to the grace and Spirit of God. And the reason that God 
does not save all is not that he wants the power to do it, but that in 
his wisdom he does not see fit to exert that power further than he 
actually does.'' (Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, vol. iii. p. 779.) 

In the same creed occurs also the following : 
" God from eternit\ 7 has determined to renew and 
sanctify and save a part only of mankind." In 
another article we are informed that — 

"As a consequence of Adam's transgression his descendants 
are not only doomed to temporal death, but are also born into 
this world in such a state that as soon as they are moral agents, 
they freely sin by transgressing the divine law, and are by 
nature and without the interposition of divine grace, in respect 
to moral character, wholly sinful, and therefore justly exposed 
to the wrath of God." 

This was called a revised and reformed creed at the 
time of its appearance in the "New Englander." 

II. The Congregational Creed. — The ancient 
standards of this sect have not only never been re- 
pudiated officially, but they have been affirmed over 
and over again. Says the Savoy Confession (a. d. 
1658) : — 



12 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

" By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some 
men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and otters 
foreordained to everlasting death. 

" These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained are 
particularly and unchangeably designed ; and their number is so 
certain and definite that it cannot be increased or diminished. 

" They [our first parents] being the root, and by God's appoint- 
ment standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt 
of this sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed to all 
their posterity descending from them in ordinary generation. 

" Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of 
the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth in its own 
nature bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over 
to the wrath of God and curse of the law, and so made subject 
to death, with all miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal. 

" Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by 
Christ, who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth; so 
also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being out- 
wardly called to the ministry of the word. 

" Others not elected, although they may be called by the min- 
istry of the word, and may have some common operations of the 
Spirit, yet not being effectually drawn by the Father, they neither 
do nor can come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved. 

" Much less can men not professing the Christian religion be 
saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to 
frame their lives according to the light of nature and the law 
of that religion they do profess; and to assert and maintain that 
they may is very pernicious and to be detested. 

" Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, 
justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved but the elect only." 

Chapter iii. section 6 says: "To all those for whom Christ 
liath purchased Redemption, he doth certainly and effectually 
ipply and communicate the same." 

These doctrines are reaffirmed in the platform of 
the Andover (Massachusetts) Seminary, where Con- 
gregational ministers are graduated each year, every 



THE CREEDS. 13 

professor in which is required at his inauguration to 
swear that he believes every statement, which oath 
he must renew every five years. Says the Andover 
Platform : — 

"Adam, the federal head and representative of the human race, 
was placed in a state of probation, and that in consequence of his 
disobedience his descendants were constituted sinners ; that by 
nature every man is depraved, destitute of holiness, unlike and 
opposed to God, and that previously to the renewing agency of 
the Divine Spirit, all his moral actions are adverse to the char- 
acter and glory of God; that, being morally incapable of recover- 
ing the image of his Creator, which was lost in Adam, every man 
is justly exposed to eternal damnation; so that, * except a man 
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God; ' that God of 
his mere good pleasure, from all eternity elected some to ever- 
lasting life, and that he entered into a covenant of grace to de- 
liver them out of this state of sin and misery by a Redeemer; that 
the only Redeemer of the elect is the eternal Son of God, who for 
this purpose became man, and continues to be God and man in 
two distinct natures and one person forever; that Christ, as our 
Redeemer, executeth the office of a Prophet, Priest, and King ; 
that, agreeably to the covenant of redemption, the Son of God, 
and he alone, by his suffering and death, has made atonement 
for the sins of all men ; that repentance, faith, and holiness are 
the personal requisites in the gospel scheme of salvation; that 
the righteousness of Christ is the only ground of a sinner's justi- 
fication; that this righteousness is received through faith, and 
that this faith is the gift of God, so that our salvation is wholly 
of grace; that no means whatever can change the heart of a sin- 
ner and make it holy; that regeneration and sanctification are 
effects of the creating and renewing agency of the Holy Spirit, 
. . . but that the wicked will wake to shame and everlasting 
contempt, and with devils be plunged into the lake that burnetii 
with fire and brimstone forever and ever. I moreover believe 
that God, according to the counsel of his own will and for his 



14 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

own glory, hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, and that 
all beings, actions, and events, both in the natural and moral 
world, are under his providential direction; that God's decrees 
perfectly consist with human liberty, God's universal agency 
with the agency of man, and man's dependence with his account- 
ability; that man has understanding and corporeal strength to 
do all that God requires of him, so that nothing but the sinner's 
aversion to holiness prevents his salvation ; that it is the pre- 
rogative of God to bring good out of evil, and that he will cause 
the wrath and rage of wicked men and devils to praise him, and 
that all the evil which has existed and which will forever exist 
in the moral system will eventually be made to promote a most 
important purpose under the wise and perfect administration of 
the Almighty Being, who will cause all things to work for his 
own glory, and thus fulfil all his pleasure. And furthermore, I 
do solemnly promise that I will open and explain the Scriptures 
to my pupils with integrity and faithfulness ; that I will main- 
tain and inculcate the Christian faith as expressed in the creed 
by me now repeated, together with all the other doctrines and 
duties of our holy religion, so far as may appertain to my office, 
according to the best light God shall give me, and in opposition, 
not only to atheists and infidels, but to Jews, Papists, Mahome- 
tans, Aryans, Pelagians, Antinomians, Arminians, Socinians, 
Sabellians, Unitarians, and Universalists, and to all heresies and 
errors, ancient and modern, which may be opposed to the Gospel 
of Christ, or hazardous to the souls of men; that by my instruc- 
tion, counsel, and example, I will endeavor to promote true piety 
and godliness ; that I will consult the good of this institution 
and the peace of the churches of our Lord Jesus Christ on all 
occasions ; and that I will religiously conform to the consti- 
tution and laws of this seminary, and to the statutes of this 
foundation." 

Our Congregational brethren frequently declare 
that they have progressed a long way from the the- 
ology of the Puritans, and we are often reprimanded 



THE CREEDS. 15 

for holding them to the old platforms. And yet, in 
January, 1870, the National Council in Boston went 
down to Plymouth and re-affirmed the confessions 
and platforms of 1648 and 1680. The document 
most appropriately emanates from u among the 
graves." Let an extract from the declaration of the 
American Congregational Church, and not any un- 
authorized member, tell us what progress that 
church has made as a body in two centuries. The 
Declaration says : — 

" Standing by the rock where the Pilgrims set foot upon the 
spot where they worshipped God, and among the graves of the 
early generations, we, elders and messengers of the Congrega- 
tional churches of the United States, in National Council assem- 
bled — like them acknowledging no rule of faith but the word! 
of God — do now declare our adherence to the faith and order of 
the apostolic and primitive churches, held by our fathers aiQidl 
substantially as embodied in the confessions and platforms 
which our synods of 1648 and 1680 set forth or re-affirmed. We 
declare that the experience of the nearly two and a half centuries, 
which have elapsed since the memorable day when our sires, 
founded here a Christian commonwealth, with all the dievelop/- 
ment of new forms of error since their time, has only deepened 
our confidence in the faith and polity of those fathers* We 
bless God for the inheritance of these doctrines. We invoke 
the help of the divine Redeemer, that, through the presence of 
the promised Comforter, he will enable us to transmit them 
in purity to our children." 

III. The Baptist Church. — The Baptists, while 
denying the right of the general body to dictate to the 
local church according to their accepted Congrega- 
tionalism, have been noted for avowing a rigid and 



16 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

rigorous faith in the " orthodox " doctrines. They 
have been in full accord with the extreme portions 
of the " evangelical " church. There are some nota- 
ble signs of the progress of liberal thought among 
them, as we shall show hereafter, but the body as a 
whole agrees with the Presbyterian and Congrega- 
tional statements of belief, and with its chief modern 
exponents. The Philadelphia " Confession of Faith " 
(a. d. 1742) recites substantially the generally ac- 
cepted doctrines of the fall of Adam, hereditary 
depravit} r , etc., and in section xxxiii. says that at 
the last judgment " the souls of the wicked are cast 
into hell, where the}' remain in torment and utter 
darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great da}*." 
In section xxxiv., after describing the last judgment, 
it is declared : — 

" The wicked shall be cast into eternaltorments, and punished 
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and 
from the glory of his power." 

IV. The Episcopal Articles. — The doctrines of 
this sect are set forth in its u Articles of Religion. " 
The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 
both in the English edition of 1571, and the Amer- 
ican revision of 1801, declare : — 

"Art. IX. Original sin standeth not in the following of 
Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the fault and 
corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engen- 
dered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is far gone from 
original righteousness and is of his own nature inclined to evil, 



THE GREEDS. 17 

so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit, and there- 
fore in every person born into this world it deserveth God's 
wrath and damnation. 

11 Art. X. The condition of man after the fall of Adam is 
such that he cannot tarn and prepare himself by his own natu- 
ral strength and good works to faith, and calling upon God. 
Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and 
acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ prevent- 
ing, that we may have a good will, and working with us when 
we have that good will. 

"Art. XXII. Predestination to life is the everlasting pur- 
pose of God whereby (before the foundations of the world were 
laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us to 
deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen 
in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to ever- 
lasting salvation as vessels made to honor." 

Here it is distinctly stated that all men are re- 
sponsible for Adam's sin, are liable to God's wrath 
and curse, not because the}' follow Adam, but be- 
cause they are born into this world inheriting his 
nature ; that they cannot of themselves repent ; and 
that only those turn to God whom God compels ; and 
thus, as the damnation is not for deeds committed, 
but for inheriting a depraved nature, it logically fol- 
lows that infants are damned. Indeed, the doctrine 
of this church of baptismal regeneration gives em- 
phasis to this statement, for while there are probabl}' 
few among clergy or laity who would not repudiate 
infant damnation, the doctrine once preached is 
logically the teaching of the Articles. 

However, it should be observed that there is 
great latitude tolerated to the clergy and laity of this 



18 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

church. They accept the creeds with many shades 
of construction. As many as fourteen have been 
named, and as one has listened to the preachers not 
only of the Episcopal Church, but of other denomina- 
tions, he might well think that the latitudinarian 
example had been imitated. These are some of the 
ways in which it has been said that the creeds are 
construed by those who profess them : — 

I. In the sense of the imposers of the Articles. 

II. In the sense of the compilers. 

III. In their strict, obvious, and literal sense. 

IV. In any sense which the words will bear, consistently 
with the subscriber's interpretation of Scripture. 

V. As articles of peace. 

VI. As true in general, and sufficiently so for their intention, 
though not true as to every particular proposition. 

VII. As far as they are agreeable to the word of God. 

VIII. As far as they are fundamental articles of faith, neces- 
sary to salvation. 

IX. On the authority of others, believing that others believe 
them to be true. 

X. In any sense which approved doctors of the church have 
affixed to them. 

XI. As mere forms of admission into office. 

XII. In Pa-ley's sense, as originally intended to exclude only 
three classes of men from the church, namely, Papists, Puritans, 
and Anabaptists. 

XIII. In the sense of the members of the church, though 
different from that expressed in the Articles. 

XIV. In no sense, or as nonsense ; in which sense the major- 
ity perhaps subscribe, alleging that it is well known to those 
who receive their subscriptions that they know nothing about 
the Articles, or do not believe them, and that therefore they 
deceive nobody. 



THE CREEDS. 19 

V. The Methodist Episcopal Church. — The 
creed of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the 
same as that of the Episcopal Church ; so that what 
we have said of the first applies to the second. But 
it must be stated that while the first has risen far 
higher than the doctrines of the Articles, the Metho- 
dist people have kept consistently down to the lower 
level of the authorized standards. But even this 
church has made progress in the direction of light 
and truth. How "the people called Methodists" 
have interpreted their creeds will appear in subse- 
quent pages. 

VI. The Wesleyans. — However the different 
branches of the Methodist Church may differ on 
other points, — " Church North and Church South," 
Protestant, Episcopal, or Wesleyan, — they unite in 
their profession of the old creed. Says the " Wes- 
leyan Methodist Catechism " : - — 

' ■ What sort of a place is hell ? 

" Hell is a dark and bottomless pit, full of fire and brim- 
stone. 

* * How will the wicked be punished there ? 

" The wicked will be punished in hell by having their bodies 
tormented with lire, and their souls by a sense of the wrath of 
God. 

" How long will their torments last ? 

"The torments of hell will last forever and ever." 

But the English Wesleyans very generally repudi- 
ate the old error, as will be seen later in these pages. 



20 THE LEA VEN A T WORK. 

VII. The Roman Catholic Creed is the " Decla- 
ration of the Council of Trent," as authoritatively 
interpreted b}' the Church Councils and the Pope. 
It contains the harshest and cruellest tenets of medi- 
aeval theology. Those doctrines have been reaf- 
firmed, as in 1869, in the pastoral address of the 
council held in Baltimore, written by Archbishop 
Spalding, foeticide is denounced on the ground that 
the unborn infant, not being baptized, is lost, — the 
crime thus involving the murder of the soul as well 
as of the body. 

At the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
order of the Jesuits, celebrated in Boston, the histori- 
cal and eulogistic discourse was delivered by Bishop 
O'Reilly, of Springfield, who among other things gave 
utterance to the following : — 

" No one outside of the church of Jesus Christ can be saved ; 
and it is needless to prove that this church is the only church 
of Jesus. One might as" well have tried to be saved outside of 
the ark in the days of Noah." 

This leaves a narrow verge for the rest of us, — ' 
only a heaven for Roman Catholics, with all the 
rest of mankind filially in hell. 

Quotations might be multiplied ; but it is unneces- 
sary, as no one looks for modifications in this 
church. It ma}-, however, be said that its doctrine 
of purgatory renders it far superior to most of the 
churches of Christendom. 



THE CREEDS. 21 

It was when the foregoing creeds held unquestioned 
dominion in Christendom that a handful of unlettered 
men assembled in Winchester, New Hampshire, in 
1803, and adopted the following as the platform of 
the Universalist denomination : — 

" Art. I. We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of 
God, and of the duty, interest, and final destination of man- 
kind. 

"Art. II. We "believe that there is one God, whose nature 
is Love, revealed in one Lord, Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit 
of Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of mankind 
to holiness and happiness. 

" Art. III. We believe that holiness and true happiness are 
inseparably connected, and that believers ought to be careful to 
maintain order and practise good works ; for these things are 
good and profitable unto men." 

A comparison of the average belief among Chris- 
tians then and now will show something of the 
leavening effect already produced by these new 
statements of Christian truth. 



CHAPTER II. 

REPRESENTATIVE INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 

T^HOSE who invented the doctrines that have 
here been printed in their credal form, and 
those who have interpreted them, leave it impossible 
to doubt that the}' were once presented as explicitly 
as they are stated in the platforms. We will now 
give representative declarations of those competent 
to speak. Any number of quotations might be 
given, but it will be only necessary to present a few 
that we have gleaned that speak for the general sen- 
timent of their contemporaries. The}' are given in 
the order in which the creeds are printed in the 
preceding chapter. 

Said John Calvin (Commentary on John xvii. 9) : 

" Whence it appears that the whole world does not belong to 
its Creator ; only that grace snatches a few from the curse and 
wrath of God and from eternal death, who would otherwise 
perish, hut leaves the world in the ruin to which it has been 
ordained." 

Elsewhere Calvin adds : — 

"Unde factum est, ut tot gcntes una cum libcris corum 
infantibus octernd morte involveret lapsus Ada absque re medio, 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 23 

nisi quia Deo ita visum est ? Decretum quidem horribile, 
fateor." 1 

Translation : " Again I ask whence it happened that the fall 
of Adam involved without remedy in eternal death so many- 
nations, together with their infant children, except because it 
so seemed good to God ? A horrible decree, I confess." 

"Many, indeed, as if they wished to avert odium from God, 
admit election in such a way as to deny that any one is repro- 
bated. But this is puerile and absurd, because election itself 
could not exist without being opposed to reprobation. Whom 
God passes by, therefore, he reprobates, and from no other 
cause than his determination to exclude them from the inher- 
itance which he predestinates for his children." 2 

Luther declared (on Psalm xxix.) : — 

" We say that children are conceived and born in sin, and 
cannot be saved without Christ, to whom we bring them in 
baptism ; ... for without Christ is there no salvation. There- 
fore Turkish and Jewish children are not saved, since they are 
not brought to Christ. " 

Rev. Mr. Shaw, in the " Exposition of the Con- 
fession of Faith " (p. 59), says : — 

" The decree of God relates to all future things without ex- 
ceptions. Whatsoever was done in time was foreordained before 
the beginning of time. 

" Our confession teaches that God made choice of and pre- 
destinated a certain definite number of individuals unto ever- 
lasting life. . . . Christ died expressly for the elect, and pur- 
chased redemption for them alone ; ... in no sense did he die 
for the rest of the race. . . . Our Confession first asserts, posi- 
tively, that the elect are redeemed by Christ, and then, nega- 
tively, that none others are redeemed, but the elect alone." 

i Instit. hi. 23. 2 Instit. ii. 163. 



24 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

William Twisse, moderator of the Westminister 
Assembly, declared : — 

''Many infants depart from this life in original sin, and con- 
sequently are condemned to eternal death." l 

Rev. Christopher Love (1679) said: — 

" If all the land were paper, and all the water in the sea were 
ink, as many pens as grass upon the ground, and as many writers 
as sands upon the seashore, all would be too little to set 
forth the torments of hell." 

Toplady declared : — 

"It may seem absurd to human wisdom that God should 
harden, blind, and deliver up some men to a reprobate sense, — 
that he should first deliver them over to evil, and then con- 
demn them for that evil ; but the believing spiritual man sees 
no absurdity in all this, knowing that God would be never a 
whit less good even though he should destroy all men." 2 

Boston, in his " Four- fold State," saj-s : — 

" No pity shall be shown them the [damned] by their near- 
est relations. The godly wife shall applaud the justice of the 
judge in the condemnation of her ungodly husband ; the godly 
husband shall say ' Amen ' to the damnation of her who lay in 
his bosom; the godly parents shall say 'Hallelujah' at the 
passing of the sentence against their ungodly child ; and the 
godly child shall from his heart approve the damnation of his 
wicked parents," — the father who begat him and the mother 
who bore him." 

A hundred years ago, these horrible statements 
were scarcely questioned. Dr. Philip Schaff, a Pres- 
byterian, admits that — 

1 Vindicia?, i. 48. 2 Toplady on Predestination. 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS, 25 

"The scholastic Calvinists of the seventeenth century mounted 
the Alpine heights of eternal decrees with intrepid courage, 
and revelled in the reverential contemplation of the sovereign 
majesty of God, which seemed to require the damnation of the 
great mass of sinners, including untold millions of heathen and 
infants, for the manifestation of his terrible justice. Inside 
the circle of the elect all was bright and delightful in the 
sunshine of infinite mercy ; but outside all was darker than 
midnight." x 

Perhaps Robert Pollok, in his ' i Course of Time," 
has expatiated on this theme as fully as any writer. 
To open his book seems like uncapping the pit. A 
vivid imagination excited by his words can almost 
behold the tossings and upheavings and contortions 
of lost souls writhing in the molten lava of God's 
infinite wrath. Much might be quoted from this 
author, but his lurid language is too familiar to 
need reproduction in these pages. His poetry is 
really an unvarnished description of that awful world 
which people all around us profess to believe, but 
talk of with a pleasant smile. No, it does not ap- 
proach the reality ; but it resembles it in some 
faint degree. He tells us what will become of 
countless millions, though only now and then one 
is able to describe it so clearly. Men are forever 
to wish to die ; and to quench their thirst cups of 
burning gall are to be presented to their lips. 
And this bv the being who loves and sent Jesus 
to save men ! 

1 Harmony of Reformed Confessions, p. 47. 



26 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

As lately as the days of Dr. Gardiner Spring, we 
were informed that — 

"It will be a glorious deed when he who hung on Calvary 
shall cast those who have trodden his blood under their feet into 
the furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and wailing and 
gnashing of teeth. When the omnipotent and angry God, who 
has access to all the avenues of distress in the corporeal frame 
and all the inlets to agony in the intellectual constitution, un- 
dertakes to punish, he will convince the universe that he does 
not gird himself for the work of retribution in vain." 

Occasional traces of the old doctrines are still 
seen, though for the most part they are kept se- 
curely bottled in the creeds, and are rarely uncorked 
in the pulpit. 

In 1859, Rev. R. W. Patterson, D.D., in a sermon 
before the American Board, declared : — 

" The great Scriptural doctrine that this is the only place of 
probation to the members of our fallen race, and that those who 
die out of Christ are lost forever, sets before our minds an awful 
view of the destiny that awaits the majority of the living gener- 
ation of our race ; while it presses home an appeal to the sympa- 
thies of all who know the value and preciousness of the Christian 
hope, which must, if anything can, stir them up to make haste 
and send the word of life to their dying fellow-sinners. It bids 
us to keep in mind that the time is short within which there can 
be ai^thing done to save the six hundred millions of heathen, 
and the three or four millions of Mohammedans and dead 
formalists and heartless unbelievers who are now hastening to 
the close of their probationary life without any preparation for 
a happy eternity. And it admonishes us to remember that we 
ourselves can have, at the most, only a few years to be spent 
in efforts to rescue the souls of our fellow-heirs of immortality 
from the woes of the second death." 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 27 

• The next year (1860) the " Princeton Review " con- 
tained an article entitled " The Heathen Inexcusable 
for their Idolatry," in which the author said : — 

" They who have never known of a Saviour cannot be guilty 
of the sin of rejecting him. What, then, is the ground of their 
condemnation ? This question is an important one ; for if the 
heathen are not under condemnation, what is the use of sending 
them the gospel ? If the heathen, or the greater portion of 
them, are to get to heaven through their ignorance, where is the 
necessity for any clearer light, — which, reasoning from all past 
experience, the greater majority will not receive ? The ques- 
tion, in fact, lies still farther back, — as to the necessity of any 
gospel at all. If we, or any single individual man, could have 
been saved without the atonement, then righteousness would 
have been by that method, and Christ would not have died. 
The gospel, however, looks upon all as in a state of condemnation, 
and that none can hope for justification and eternal life except 
through the righteousness of Christ alone. . . . The heathen are 
under condemnation, and to them a dark and hopeless one ; they 
know of no escape. While, therefore, their sin is far less than of 
those who know the remedy and reject it, still their condition is 
one which should excite our deepest pity and compassion." 

Professor Hodge of the same institution de- 
clared : — 

"The heathen. in mass, with no single definite and unques- 
tionable exception on record, are evidently strangers to God, 
and are going down to death in an unsaved condition. The 
presumed possibility of being saved without a knowledge of 
Christ remains, after eighteen hundred years, a possibility illus- 
trated by no example." 

To which assented J. D. Davis, D.D., a missionary 
of Kiyoto : — 



28 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

" It is probably true that some are saved among the millions 
of Japan, but it is to be feared that they are very, very few ; 
whether it is one in ten thousand, or one in a million, we can- 
not know." 

In Jiriy, 1870, the u Chicago Interior," the able and 
amiable organ of the Presbyterian Church in North- 
western America, made this notable declaration : — 

" In a day when creeds and confessions are sneered at and 
boastfully scouted by professedly * liberal Christians' not only, 
but by some who still retain a home in Orthodox churches, it 
is cheering to see the strengthening hold that the said creeds 
and confessions have upon the confidence and affection of truly 
evangelical bodies in our land. 

"The recent meeting of the General Assembly illustrates 
this. Not only does this powerful body adhere to the West- 
minster Confession with all the tenacity and warmth of affection 
which have characterized the whole history of the Presbyterian 
Church in this country, but it is safe to say that but for the 
Westminster Confession, loved and clung to through all changes 
of the thirty years of separation, reunion could never have been 
effected. This noble Confession has virtually bound the body 
together, even while nominally sundered. . . . 

u And so the Confession, remaining all the time unchanged, 
tended to change coldness into the warmth of affection, and 
slight differences into substantial agreement, and unseemly 
estrangements into the cordial * communion of saints,' till the 
gentle but mighty process culminated in such a fraternal union 
as was exhibited in the first Assembly of the Reunited Church. 

" The Reunited Church, then, will not be likely very soon to 
look coldly on her Confession, whatever those who hate confessions 
may say to the contrary." 

And still later, in 1874, one of the charges (in 
Specification 12) brought against the Rev. David 
Swing, of Chicago, in his trial for heresy, was that — 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 29 

" He has used language in respect to Penelope and Socrates 
which, is unwarrantable and contrary to the teachings of the 
Confession of Faith, chap. x. sec. iv. ; that is to say, in his 
sermon entitled ' Soul Culture ' the following passage occurs : 
* There is no doubt the notorious Catherine II. held more truth 
and better truth than was known to all classic Greece, held to 
a belief in a Saviour, of whose glory that gifted land knew 
nought ; and yet such is the grandeur of soul above mind that 
I doubt not that Queen Penelope, of the dark land, and the 
doubting Socrates have found at heaven's gate a sweeter wel- 
come, sung of angels, than greeted the ear of Kussia's brilliant 
but false-lived queen.' " 

In 1879 Prof. F. W. Patton, now president of 
Princeton, who conducted the trial of Professor 
Swing, and who will generally be acknowledged to 
be a qualified and authorized exponent of Presbyte- 
rianism in America, for several Sundays occupied 
the pulpit of Dr. John Hall's church in New York. 
A correspondent of the " Church and People" heard 
him preach on one of the mornings during the 
period of his supply. The correspondent owns 
himself u a moderate Calvinist," and he was so 
startled at the ultra-Calvinism of Professor Patton 
that he says : — 

"For the first time in my life I began to suspect that there was 
but a step between the extremes of Calvinism and Universalism, 
unless God's love be the very opposite of what the gospel pic- 
tures it, and Dr. Patton admits, — namely, infinite." 

The reporter took down the preacher's words in 
short-hand, and we are thus informed as to what 
Presbyterianism was, even in the year 1879. This 



30 THE LEAVEN AT WORK, 

is Professor Patton's exact language. In describing 
the invisible church — those destined to be finally 
saved — he said : — 

"The church is the hody of believers chosen in the eternity 
past to be saved in the eternity to come. We know something 
about this invisible church. We know that it consists of a defi- 
nite number that can neither be increased nor diminished. We 
know that this number has been fixed from all eternity. We 
know how they became members of that church, — not by any 
act of theirs, nor through any calculations or chance, but by the 
choice of a loving and tender God. We know that there are no 
backsliders, no hypocrites, no erasures from the Lamb's Book of 
Life ; no instance where the angels, having rejoiced over the 
repentant sinner, begin to feel that their rejoicing was too soon 
or too premature. We know that the membership in this 
church consists of all those who have been chosen by God 
through all eternity, and realize it." 

In keeping with the before-quoted language are 
the words of Rev. T. L. Cuyler, D.D., one of the 
most popular writers for the religious press, who says 
in the " Illustrated Religious Weekly " : — 

"That tremendous gathering will be followed by tremendous 
separations. That sharp line of division shall cut right through 
congregations, right through families, and shall cleave off some- 
times the tender cord of wedlock. c Parents and children then 
shall part/ was a solemn line that I used to hear sung in the 
revival meetings of my early boyhood, with a sort of shudder. 
But I have since found out that it was an awful and inexcusable 
cruelty to conceal such a fact from those to whom God sent me 
as a faithful watchman and a preacher of his word." 

In 1883, the " Presbyterian Weekly " published this 
statement: " The Presbyterian church, as a body, 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 31 

has always held, and still holds, the doctrine of 
elect infants." ^ 

To see the progress that has been made by this 
branch of the church in theological belief, the reader 
has but to contrast the creed and the declarations of 
those who have been its interpreters, with what he 
knows to be the tone of its pulpit everywhere at the 
present moment : there is an entire absence of the 
ancient utterances. It is safe to sa}' that should 
the clergy of that church be faithful to its stand- 
ards, and explicitly preach its real doctrines, it 
would be left deserted by the mass of its people. 
It only maintains its position by recreancy to its 
standards. 

The Congregationalists have been as consistent in 
their advocacy of the old errors as were the Presb}'- 
terian authorities just quoted. Theoretically this 
body has not advanced from the original darkness of 
mediae valism. John Robinson, the preacher of the 
Pilgrims in Levden said : — 

" The infants saved are saved by the grace of God in Christ. 
Those that perish (though I desire, if such were the will of God, 
and could gladly believe if the Scriptures taught it, that all were 
saved) do perish for that original guilt and corruption wherein 
they are conceived and born, being the children of wrath by na- 
ture, and thereby liable to God's curse every way. . . . Since 
all children are by nature children of or subject to wrath, and 
which God might in justice destroy, why should it seem harsh 
unto these men that he should execute his justice upon some 
and show mercy unto others and save them ? " 1 

i Works, iii. 231-233. 



32 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

And Jonathan Edwards descended to the most 
minute particulars of the horrors of the creed, now 
so studiedly ignored even by those who profess it. 
Said he : — 

" Every time they [the saints] look upon the damned, it will 
excite in them a lively and admiring sense of the grace of God 
in making them so to differ. The sight of hell torments will 
exalt the happiness of the saints forever." 

If this were so, what a delectable place would 
heaven be, and how much meaner and more supreme- 
ly selfish and cold-hearted its inhabitants than the 
basest children of earth. The savage Doctor revels 
in his evil words : — 

"The saints will not be sorry for the damned ; it will cause 
no uneasiness or dissatisfaction to them. But on the contrary, 
when they see the sight (the endless torments of the damned), 
it will occasion rejoicing, and excite them to joyful praises." 

Suppose this principle were reduced to practice on 
earth, and that the saints expressed no regret over 
the misery of the unregenerate, and rejoiced in their 
suffering. Would it not prove them hardened, selfish 
wretches ? That belief in such a heaven ever existed 
is almost a proof of total depravity, for it would 
seem that no other character could conceive the 
thought. 

Edwards continues : — 

"The God who holds you over the pit of hell, much as one 
holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors 
you and is dreadfully provoked ; his wrath toward you burns 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 33 

like lire ; lie looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but 
to be cast into the fire ; he is of purer eyes than to bear to 
have you in his sight ; you are ten thousand times as abom- 
inable in his eyes as the most hateful and venomous serpent is 
in ours. 

1 ' When you shall wish that you might be turned into noth- 
ing, but shall have no hope of it ; when you shall wish that you 
might be turned into a toad or serpent, but shall have no hope 
of it ; when you would rejoice if you might have any relief after 
you have endured these torments millions of ages, but shall have 
no hope of it ; when after you have worn out the ages of the 
sun, moon, and stars, in your dolorous groans and lamentations, 
without rest, day or night, or one minute's ease, yet you shall 
have no hope of ever being delivered ; when after you have worn 
out a thousand more such ages, yet you shall have no hope, but 
shall know that you are not one whit nearer the end of your 
torments, but that still there are the same groans, the same 
shrieks, the same doleful cries incessantly to be made by you, 
and that the s*moke of your torment shall still ascend forever 
and ever, and that your souls, which have been agitated by the 
wrath of God all this while, will yet exist to bear more wrath, — 
your bodies, which have been burning and roasting all this while 
in these glowing flames, yet shall not have been consumed, but 
will remain to roast through an eternit}^ yet, which shall not 
have been at all shortened by what shall have been past." 1 

It is refreshing to read that after listening to such 
horrible blasphemy for twenty-three years, the dis- 
gusted laymen of Northampton, Mass., voted 20 to 1 
to hear no more of it from Mr. Jonathan Edwards, 
the patron-saint of New England Congregationalism. 

In emulation of Edwards, Rev. Samuel Hopkins, 

one of the tutelary saints of this denomination, 

declared : — 

1 Sermon on the Eternity of Hell Torments. 
3 



34 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

"This display of the divine character will be most entertaining 
to all who love God, will give them the highest and most ineffa- 
ble pleasure. Should the fire of this eternal punishment cease, 
it would in a great measure obscure the light of heaven, and 
put an end to a great part of the happiness and glory of the 
blessed." 

And Dr. Nathaniel Emmons, of like precious faith, 
affirmed : — 

"One part of the business of the blessed is to celebrate the 
doctrine of reprobation. While the decree of reprobation is 
eternally executing on the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their 
torments will be eternally ascending in view of the vessels of 
mercy, who, instead of taking part with those miserable objects, 
will say, * Amen, alleluja, praise the Lord ! ' It concerns, there- 
fore, all the expectants of heaven to anticipate the trying scene, 
and ask their hearts whether they are on the LorcVs side, and 
can yraise him for reprobating as well as electing love." 1 

Kev. Michael Wiggles worth, in his "Day of 
Doom," represents God as trying to make it easy 
for reprobate infants, by saying to them at the day 
of judgment (verse 166) : — 

" Then to the bar they all draw near 

Who died in infancy, 
And never had no good or bad 

Effected personally, 
But from the womb unto the tomb 

Were straightway carried, 
Or at least ere they transgressed, 

Who thus began to plead : " — 

But the judge answers them (verse 180) : — 

1 Works, vi. 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 35 

" You sinners are, and such a share 

As sinners may expect, 
Such you shall have, for I do save 

None but mine own Elect. 
Yet to compare your sin with their 

Who liv'd a longer time, 
I do confess yours is much less, 

Though every sin 's a crime. 

"A crime it is, therefore in bliss 
You may not hope to dwell ; 
But unto you I shall allow 
The easiest room in Hell." 

The " poem " continues : — 

• • • • • 

"One natural brother beholds another 

In this astonied fit, 
Yet sorrows not thereat a jot 

Nor pities him a whit. 
The godly wife conceives no grief, 

Nor can she shed a tear, 
For the sad state of her dear mate, 

When she his doom doth hear. 
He that was erst a husband pierced 

With sense of wife's distress, 
Whose tender heart did bear a part 

Of all her grievances, 
Shall mourn no more as heretofore, 

Because of her ill plight, 
Altho' he see her now to be 

A damned forsaken wight. 
The tender mother will own no other, 

Of all her numerous brood, 
But such as stand at Christ's right hand, 

Acquitted through his blood. 
The pious father had now much rather 

His graceless son should lie 



36 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

In hell with devils for all his et^ls, 

Burning eternally, 
Than God most high should injury 

By sparing him sustain ; 
And doth rejoice to hear Christ's voice 

Adjudging him to pain. 
• • • • 

"But get away without delay, 

Christ pities not your cry ; 
Depart to hell, there may you yell 

And roar eternally. 

"The saints behold with courage bold, 
And thankful wonderment, 
To see all those that were their foes 
Thus sent to punishment." 

Rev. Josiah Spalding, in a book entitled, " Uni- 
versalism Destroys Itself/' says : — 

" They [the saints] look down and see their own dearest kindred 
in hell, under all the bitter agonies of death, and they stand 
unmoved at the sight ; they maintain perfect calmness and 
undisturbed joy. They hear the judge pronounce the final 
sentence ; they see all the wicked sink down to hell, and hell 
moved with devouring flames to meet them, — a sight infinitely 
more dreadful than the sinking of worlds. At the same time 
they begin the triumph song ; they see the power of God em- 
ployed in the most terrible manner to make their nearest and 
dearest connections forever miserable. 

"And for this display of his power they ascribe unto him bless- 
ings and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving. This considera- 
tion, were there no other, is proof that the redeemed in Jo 
stand complete in holiness. They feel exactly as God feels, 
according to their measure, as they are filled with all the fulness 
of God." 

Benjamin Keach, Nonconformist, two hundred 
years ago, said, — 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 37 

"And as a stinking steam and smoke 
Of brimstone bad does smell, 
And blinds the eyes, and stomach chokes, 
So are the pangs of hell. 

"Here meets them now that worm that gnaws, 
And plucks their bowels out ; 
The pit, too, on them shuts her jaws : 
This dreadful is, no doubt." 

Again, in Alleine's " Alarm to the Unconverted " 
(ed. 1672, p. 189), we have this description of hell : — 

"How furious are the tormentors ! 'Tis their only music to 
hear how their miserable patients roar, to hear their bones crack. 
'T is their meat and drink to see how their flesh frieth, and their 
fat droppeth, to drench them with burning metal, and to rip 
open their bodies and pour in the fierce and fiery brass into 
their bowels and the recesses and ventricles of their hearts." 

"The great motive to missionary effort, — the heathen are 
expressly doomed to perdition. Six hundred millions of death- 
less souls on the brink of hell ! What a spectacle ! " l 

Professor Park, of Andover, said in an installa- 
tion service in Providence, R. I. : — 

"There is depravity enough beneath the smile of an infant 
to damn it to all eternity ! " 

It is well for us occasionally to resort to these 
frank exponents of error, in order to see clearly 
the enormity of their doctrines. We rarely hear or 
read from modern divines naked statements of their 
views. Liberal preaching in "Orthodox" pulpits 

1 American Board of Missions. Quoted in Alger's Doct. Fut. 
Life, p. 544. 



38 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

is fashionable, and the prophets prophesy smoothl}'. 
They so lard their speech with smooth words that 
the unreflecting are deceived into a nominal accept- 
ance without perceiving what the}' embrace. If all 
modern preachers w r ere as outspoken and explicit 
as the authors we have quoted, popular churches 
would soon present a " beggar! 3' account of empty 
boxes." They would not be tolerated. 

So far as we have been able to read former Ortho- 
dox descriptions of the eternal world, we have found 
the character of the damned much more amiable 
than that of the saved. While the wicked utter 
awful imprecations on their own heads, and on the 
author of their misfortunes, it is only the good who 
chuckle and gloat and scream with rapture over 
the agonies of others. They are pure and holy, and 
yet they do what a decent man would not be guilty 
of over a vile rat or venomous snake. 

The Baptist people have been in the front rank 
of the explicit advocates of this dreadful doctrine. 
Spurgeon sa}'s, — 

" Thou wilt look up there on the throne of God, and it shall 
"be written ' Forever ! ' When the damned jingle the burning 
irons of their torment they shall sa}% ' Forever ! ' "When they 
howl, echo cries ' Forever ! ' " 

He says to the sinner, in his sermon on c ' The 
Resurrection." 

" Thou wilt have twin hells ; thy soul sweating drops of blood, 
and thy body suffused with agony. In fire, exactly like that 



INDORSEMENTS. OF THE CREEDS. 39 

which ice have on earth, thy body will lie, asbestos-like, ' forever 
unconsumed.' " 1 

And on Psalm ix. 17, he observes : — 

"How solemn is the seventeenth verse, especially in its warn- 
ing to forge tters of God ! The moral who are not devout, the 
honest who are not prayerful, the benevolent who are not be- 
lieving, the amiable who are not converted, — these must all 
have their portion with the openly wicked in the hell which is 
prepared for the Devil and his angels. There are whole nations 
of such. The forgetters of God are far more numerous than the 
profane or profligate ; and according to the very forceful express- 
ion of the Hebrew, the nethermost hell will be the place into 
which all of them shall be hurled headlong." 2 

The expressed declarations of Baptists do not 
indicate progress sufficient for much congratulation, 
except so far as a very general silence characterizes 
them on themes that once formed the staple of 
preaching. Perhaps as much as an} T other branch 
of the Protestant church, the Baptists are where 
their ancestors were a century ago. But how little 
one would suspect it from the average preacher. 

Just how their creed was formerly preached by 
Episcopalians may be seen by consulting the lan- 
guage of Bishop Jeremy Taylor : — 

• u The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in 
hell like grapes in a wine-press, which press one another till 
they burst. Every distinct sense and organ shall be assailed 
with its own appropriate and most exquisite sufferings. Hus- 
bands shall see their wives, parents shall see their children, 
tormented before their eyes. 

1 Cited in Alger's History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 518. 

2 Treasury of David. 



40 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

' * As the slaves of the earth are whipped and punished by 
their masters, so the slaves of hell are tormented by the devils, 
who have power and dominion over them, and who lay upon 
them a thousand afflictions, griefs, and miseries. Every mem- 
ber of their bodies shall suffer more pain and torment than if it 
were torn from the body. If one cannot tell how to suffer a 
toothache, headache, or pain of the colic, what will it be when 
there shall not be any joint, or the least part of the body, 
which shall not cause him intolerable pain, — not only the 
head or teeth, but also the breasts, sides, shoulders, the back, 
the heart, and marrow ? " 

Even the hymns of good Dr. Watts were sung in 
all Episcopal churches. We quote a few stanzas. 
Some of the lines will' be recognized; but others of 
thern are not often met with : — 

" My thoughts on awful subjects roll, — 
Damnation and the dead. 
What horrors seize the guilty soul 
Upon a dying bed ! 

" Lingering about these mortal shores, 
She makes a long delay ; 
Till like a flood with rapid force 
Death sweeps the wretch away ! 

" Then swift and dreadful she descends 
Down to the fiery coast 
Among abominable fiends, 
Herself a frightful ghost. 

" There endless crowds of sinners lie, 
And darkness makes their chains ; 
Tortured with keen despair, they cry, 
Yet wait for fiercer pains. 

" Not all their anguish and their blood 
For their old guilt atones, 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 41 

Nor the compassion of a God 
Shall hearken to their groans." 

" Down in the deep where darkness dwells — 
The land of horror and despair * — 
Justice has built a dismal hell, 

And laid her stores of vengeance there ! 

" Eternal plagues and heavy chains, 
Tormenting rocks and fiery coals, 
And darts to inflict immortal pains, 
Dyed in the blood of damned souls. 

" There Satan, the first sinner, lies, 

And roars, and bites his iron bands ; 
In vain the rebel strives to rise, 

Crushed with the weight of both thy hands." 

And Charles Wesley, who, unlike his brother, 
never broke with the Episcopal Church, says in 
Hymn XL, on " God's Everlasting Love:' 9 — 

" A real fiery, sulphurous hell 
Shall prey upon our outward frame." 

Canon Farrar quotes a hymn such as once inter- 
preted the Episcopal creed ( u Mercy and Judg- 
ment/' p. 132) : — 

" His nostrils breathe out fiery streams ; 
And from his awful tongue 
A sovereign will divides the flames, 
And thunder rolls along. 

"Think, my soul ! the dreadful day 
When this incensed God 
Shall rend the sky, and burn the sea, 
And fling his wrath abroad ! 



42 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

" Tempests of angry fire shall roll 
To blast the rebel worm, 
And beat upon his naked soul 
In one eternal storm." 

It is clue to candor to say that such blasphemous 
sentiments are now rarely heard in Episcopal circles. 
But if they are not believed, why are the}' not offi- 
cially discarded? The contrast between the doc- 
trines once believed and preached and those now 
cherished and advocated is exhibited by placing the 
words of Jeremy Taylor w r ith the language heard 
from the average Episcopal pulpit of to-day and 
seen in our quotations on subsequent pages, from 
Farrar, Holland, Newton, etc. 

The Methodists have outstripped their Articles of 
Religion in their advocacj' of the savage doctrines of 
partialism. John Wesle}- himself said : — 

" But what if you were compelled to hold one of your fingers 
in the flame of a lamp for a whole year. How could you endure 
the agony caused by the fire upon even this little member ? 
But what if in place of a finger it was your whole hand or 
arm, and you were compelled to feel your arm continually burn- 
ing but never consumed ? Would not such speechless agony be 
more than. you could endure ? But in place of being an arm, 
what if it were thy whole body ? and in place of its being a 
whole year, it were a whole lifetime ? yea, for a whole eternity ! 
How unspeakable the agony of the fire forever burning thy 
whole body, but never destroying it ! 

" But some one will ask if this is material fire. 

"There is no other fire but material fire ! And to say that 
the fire of hell is not material fire is to contradict the Bible and 
to give the lie to the plainest teachings of Christ. 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 43 

" But an objector asserts, ' If it be material fire, the whole 
body would soon consume away, and thus render its punishment 
■impossible. ' Nay ; for God is able to render our bodies immortal, 
to even the consuming fires of hell, and thus to render them 
capable of eternal anguish, ' where the worm dieth not and the 
fire is not quenched.' " 

The old horrors are still occasionally uttered. 
Saj's Rev. T. R. Strowbridge, in a recent " Chris- 
tian Advocate " : — 

"None of the prophets or apostles lifted the hatches off of 
hell as did the loving Jesus. He brought death and immor- 
tality to light in all the fiery distinctness of a flaming hell." 

Observe how this man perverts the Scripture. 
The apostle says ttfat Jesus ''brought life and 
immortality to light.'' But the exigencies of the 
Methodist creed compel him to add to the Word of 
Life by substituting death for life. So, too, in 
May, 1881, the "Northwestern Christian Advocate" 
(Chicago) said, in its exposition of the Rich Man 
and Lazarus : — 

"But at the prayer of despair, the cry extorted by suffering, 
he [God] will laugh, and at their calamity brought on by sin, in 
eternity he ivill mock." 

And Rev. F. H. Newhall, D. D., in " Zion's 
Herald": — 

"The man Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, for three years 
bore the world upon his shoulders and received into his heart 
all the fiery arrows of hell." 



44 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

This church has recorded itself as the Bourbon 
among the sects. For it says in its Articles of 
Religion : — 

"The General Conference shall not revoke, alter, or change 
our Articles of Religion, nor establish any new standards or 
rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and estab- 
lished standards of doctrine." 

In spite, however, of resting under the incubus 
of a fossil creed, this great and growing church is 
expanding its faith. Parchment cerements are easily 
burst where there is real life within them. A live 
church will snap dogmas as Samson burst the green 
withes of the Philistines. The Methodist ministry 
is frequent in its advocacy of tjie doctrine of endless 
woe, but its laity that reject it are to be counted by 
tens of thousands. 

A few quotations may be given from Catholic 
authors. 

Saint Augustine. — " Not all, nor even a majority, are saved." 
(Enchiridion, cap. 24. Opp. vi.) 

" They [the saved] are indeed many, if regarded by themselves, 
but they are few in comparison with the far larger number of 
those who shall be punished with the devil." (Contra Cresco. ) 

' ' It can be lightly said that infants passing out of the body 
without baptism, will be in a damnation the mildest of all." 
(De Peccat. i. 16.) 

Saint Thomas Aquinas. — "That the saints may enjoy their 
beatitude more thoroughly, and give more abundant thanks to 
God for it, a perfect sight of the punishment of the damned is 
granted to them." (Summa III: Stipp. Qu. 93, 1.) 

Peter Lombard. — " Therefore the elect shall go forth to see the 
torments of the impious, seeing which they will not be grieved, 



INDORSEMENTS OF THE CREEDS. 45 

but will be satiated with joy at the sight of the unutterable 
calamity of the impious." 

" A crowd of men sink daily to Tartarus as thick as the fall- 
ing snowflakes. " (Cornelius a Lapide, num. xiv. 30.) 

Dante. — "The spirits of unbaptized infants are in the first 
circle of the Inferno, where they desire to see God, but have 
no hope." (Inf. iv. 28-43.) 

Such quotations as these from all the ancient 
churches might be made till they would fill volumes. 
Gerhard, a celebrated German theologian, said : — 

"The blessed will see their friends and relations among the 
damned as often as they like (quotiescunque voluerint), but 
without the least compassion." 

Dr. Lewis Du Moulin (Moral Reflections) : — 

"There is not above one saved of a hundred thousand, or 
rather of a million, from Adam to the day of judgment." 

What the doctrine of endless hell torments really 
is, can never be stated in human language. No- 
where, in all the extravagance and delirium of reli- 
gionists, can we find sentiments in relation to God 
more fiendish than the efforts of mistaken Christians 
to describe it. Ransack the lore of antiquity, the 
parchments and books of ancient and modern times, 
written outside the pale of Christianity, and there 
are found sentiments to match them uttered b}' those 
who professed to believe that God is love, and yet 
who supposed that he would consign a portion of his 
intelligent offspring to never-ending wretchedness 
and woe. 



CHAPTER III. 

TESTIMONY TO THE EVIL INFLUENCE OF THE 

CREEDS. 

TV /TEN seem to have schooled themselves until a 
comparatively recent period to contemplate 
the horrid results indicated by their creeds with equa- 
nimity, and sometimes with infernal delight. Think 
of exulting over the endless tortures of the damned, 
as did Tertullian, quoted below. And what are the 
prominent dogmas inculcated b} r these creeds and 
advocated b}^ those who accepted them ? 

1. The election of some to endless happiness, and 
the reprobation of others to infinite and unending 
torture, without any regard whatever to the conduct 
or character of either. 

2. The torment without alleviation or end of the 
larger portion of the human family, making the 
saved only a small minority at most. 

3. The utter woe and misery of all who had never 
heard of Christ, no matter how moral might have 
been their lives. 

4. The roasting — "liquefying," Tertullian calls it 
— in literal fire and brimstone, of those who were to 



EVIL INFLUENCE. OF THE CREEDS. 47 

be consigned to suffering; " burning forever, yet 
unconsunlecl.' , 

5. The torment of infant children, — innocent in- 
fants, whose misfortune in not having been elected 
was to be reckoned as a fault deserving all the 
tortures that infinite wrath could originate and 
perpetuate. 

Believers in these doctrines who were not made 
fiends like Tertullian must have been wretches 
whose lives were rendered a " cruel bitter " by such 
a dreadful faith. Millions who died and made no 
sign must have found life a nightmare and death a 
terror, while other millions recoiled from such mon- 
strous sentiments into infidelity. 

These are the words of Tertullian (Catholic), whose 
heart it hardened into fiendishness : — 



"What a variety of spectacles shall then appear! How shall 
I admire, how laugh, how exult, how rejoice, when I behold so 
many kings, worshipped as gods in heaven, together with Jove 
himself, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness ; so many 
magistrates who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in 
fiercer flames than they ever kindled against Christians ; so 
many sage philosophers blushing in raging fire with their 
scholars, whom they persuaded to despise God, and to disbe- 
lieve the resurrection; and so many poets, shuddering before the 
tribunal, not of Rhadamanthus, not of Minos, but of the disbe- 
lieved Christ! Then shall we hear the tragedians, more tuneful 
under their own sufferings; then shall we see the players, far 
more sprightly amidst the flames ; the charioteer, all red-hot in 
his burning car ; and the wrestlers hurled, not upon the accus- 
tomed list, but on a plain of fire! " 



48 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

No wonder John Bun van (Puritan), in view of 
such sentiments, said : — 

11 1 blessed the condition of the dog or toad, because they had 
no soul to perish under the everlasting weight of hell." 

And others have confessed, Archer Butler, for 
example : — 

" Were it possible for man's imagination to conceive the hor- 
rors of such a doom as this, all reasoning about it would be at 
an end; it would scorch and wither all the power of human 
thought." 1 

Volumes might be quoted to show the wa} T in which 
the old creeds were realized, and their effect on the 
minds of those who really accepted them. " Blood}- 
Mary " thus defended her cruelty to heretics, accord- 
ing to Bishop Burnet : — 

" As the souls of heretics are hereafter to be eternally burning 
in hell, there can be nothing more proper than for me to imitate 
the Divine vengeance by burning them on earth." 

Sismondi says, in his history of the crusades 
against the Albigenses in the thirteenth century : 

" Monks showed how every vice might be expiated by crime; 
how remorse might be expelled by the flames of their piles; how 
the soul, polluted with every shameful passion, might become 
pure and spotless by bathing in the blood of heretics. By con- 
tinuing to preach the crusade, they impelled, each year, waves 
of new fanatics upon those miserable provinces; and they com- 
pelled their chiefs to recommence the war, in order to profit by 
the fervor of those who still demanded human victims, and re- 
quired blood to effect their salvation. 

1 Sermons, second series, p. 283. 



EVIL INFLUENCE OF THE CREEDS, 49 

" The more zealous, therefore, the multitude were for the glory 
of God, the more ardently they labored for the destruction of 
heretics, the better Christians they thought themselves. And 
if at any time they felt a movement of pity or terror whilst as- 
sisting at their punishment, they thought it a revolt of the flesh 
which they confessed at the tribunal of penitence; nor could 
they get quit of their remorse till their priests had given them 
absolution. Amongst them all not a heart could be found ac- 
cessible to pity. Equally inspired by fanaticism and the love of 
war, they believed that the sure way to salvation was through 
the held of carnage. Thus did thej T advance, indifferent whether 
to victory or martyrdom, certain that either would issue in the 
reward which God himself had destined for them. " 

And Isaac Taylor (Restoration of Belief, p. 3G7) ; 

" The same gospel which penetrates our soul with warm emo- 
tions, dispersive of selfishness, brings in upon the heart a sym- 
pathy that tempts us often to wish that itself were not true, or 
that it had not taught us so to feel." 

The French Catholic Saurin's heart was broken, 
as he cried, in a well-known passage, "I sink, I 
sink, under the awful weight of my subject ; " con- 
cluding, "'I find in the thought [of endless woe] a 
mortal poison which diffuseth itself into every period 
of my life, rendering society tiresome, nourishment 
insipid, pleasure disgustful, and life itself a cruel 
bitter. I cease to wonder that the fear of hell hath 
made some mad and others melancholy." 

Keble, in the (i Christian Year," sings : — 

"Spirits lost in endless woe, 
May undecaying live. 
Oh, sickening thought ! " 
4 



50 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

Dr. Watts, in his "Day of Judgment," thus de- 
scribes a scene which modern preachers are not apt 
to allude to in terms so explicit : — 

" Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heart-strings, 
And the smart twinges when the eyes behold the 
Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of vengeance 

Rolling afore him. 

• 

"Hopeless immortals! how they scream and shiver; 
While devils push them to the pit, wide-yawning, 
Hideous and gloomy to receive them headlong 
Down to the centre." 

These doctrines continued to be so devoutly ac- 
cepted that as late as 1831, Rev. Dr. Austin, of 
Worcester, Mass., committed suicide under their ma- 
lign influence. Rev. Dr. Tenney (Congregational) 
of Weathersfield, Conn., said in the sermon preached 
at Dr. Austin's funeral : — 

" But for the last three or four years, a thick and dark cloud 
has hung over the course and enveloped in dismay the mind of 
our revered friend. He lost nearly all hope of his own reconcili- 
ation to God and interest in the Redeemer. He sunk into a 
settled, deep, religious melancholy, which occasionally appeared 
in paroxysms of despair and horror. His bitter moanings were, 
at times, sufficient to wring with sympathetic anguish the most 
unfeeling heart." 

Commenting on the above the <l Unitarian Advo- 
cate," July, 1831, remarks: — 

" Dr. Austin, for a long time before his death, was in a state 
little short of madness ; and we do not see what is to hinder that 
effect in a man who sincerely believes in endless misery, and 



EVIL INFLUENCE OF THE CREEDS. 51 

applies his doctrine to himself. The same remark may be made 
concerning the celebrated Dr. Bellamy, well known as an ortho- 
dox divine. Cowper, the beautiful poet, it is well known, more 
than once attempted to destroy his life through the influence of 
religious melancholy. He was led into a deep consideration of 
his religious state, and having imbibed the doctrine of election 
and reprobation in its most appalling rigor, he was led to a very 
dismal state of apprehension. We are told ' that the terror of 
eternal judgment overpowered and actually disordered his facul- 
ties ; and he remained seven months in a continual expectation 
of being instantly plunged into eternal misery.' Although he 
at times recovered from this dreadful depression, he at last sunk 
under it, being gradually worn out, and he expired upon his 
bed." 

Thirty-five years ago the celebrated Moses Stuart 
(Congregational) declared : — 

" There are minds of a very serious cast, and prone to reason- 
ing and inquiry, that have in some way come into such a state, 
that doubt on the subject of endless punishment cannot without 
the greatest difficulty be removed from them." 

After describing these doubts he adds : — 

" If there are any whose breasts are strangers to such difficulties 
as these, they are to be congratulated on having made attain- 
ments almost beyond the reach of humanity in the present 
world ; or else to be pitied for ignorance, or the want of a sym- 
pathy which seems to be among the first elements of our social 
nature. With the great mass of thinking Christians I am sure 
such thoughts as these must, unhappily for them, be acquaint- 
ances too familiar. That they agitate our breasts as storms do 
the mighty deep will be testified by every man of a tender 
heart, and who has a deep concern in the present and future 
welfare of those whom he loves." 1 

1 Biblical Repository, 1850. 



52 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

The terrible experience of the amiable Cowper 
represents that of thousands. 1 
He thus describes himself : — 

" Look where he comes ; in this embowered alcove 
Stand close concealed and see a statue move ; 
Lips busy and eyes fixt, foot falling slow, 
Arms hanging idly down, hands clasped below, 
Interpret to the marking eye distress 
Such as its symptoms can alone express. 
That tongue is silent now ; that silent tongue 
Could argue once, could jest or join the song, 
Could give advice, could censure or command, 
Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend. 
Kenounced alike its office and its sport, 
Its brisker and its graver strains fall short ; 
Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway, 
And like a summer brook are past away. 
This is a sight for pity to peruse ♦ 

Till she resemble faintly what she views ; 
Till sympathy contract a kindred pain 
Pierc'd with the woes that she laments in vain. 
This, of all maladies that man infest, 
Claims most compassion and receives the least." 

Says the eminent Presbyterian theologian, Rev. 
Albert Barnes, in a well-known passage : — 

"That the immortal mind should be allowed to jeopard its 
inhnite welfare, and that trifles should be allowed to draw it 
away from God, and virtue, and heaven ; that any should suffer 
forever, lingering on in hopeless despair, and rolling amidst in- 
finite torments, without the possibility of alleviation and with- 
out end ; that since God can save men, and will save a part, he 
has not purposed to save all ; that on the supposition that the 

1 See Cowper's Correspondence, and Encyclopaedia Americana, 
article u Cowper.' ■ 



EVIL INFLUENCE OF THE CREEDS. 53 

atonement is ample, and that the blood of Christ can cleanse 
from all and every sin, it is not in fact applied to all ;«that, in 
a word, a God who claims to be worthy of the confidence of the 
universe, and to be a Being of infinite benevolence, should make 
such a world as this — full of sinners and sufferers ; and that 
when an atonement had been made, he did not save all the race, 
and put an end to sin and woe forever. ... I have read, to 
some extent, what wise and good men have written. I have 
looked at their theories and explanations. I have endeavored to 
weigh their arguments, for my whole soul pants for light and 
relief on these questions. But I get neither ; and in the distress 
and anguish of my own spirit, I confess that I see no light what- 
ever. I see not one ray to disclose to me the reason why sin 
came into the world ; why the earth is strewed with the dying 
and dead ; and why man must suffer to all eternity. , I have 
never seen a particle of light thrown on these subjects that has 
given a moment's ease to my tortured mind ; nor have I an ex- 
planation to offer, or a thought to suggest, which would be of 
relief to you. I trust other men — as they profess to do — 
understand this better than I do, and that they have not the 
anguish of spirit which I have ; but I confess, when I look on a 
world of sinners and sufferers, upon death-beds and grave-yards, 
upon the world of woe filled with hosts to suffer forever ; when 
I see my friends, my family, my people, my fellow-citizens, 
when I see a whole race, all involved in this sin and danger, 
and when I see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and 
when I feel that God only can save them, and yet he does not 
do so, — I am struck dumb. It is all dark, dark, dark to my 
soul, and I cannot disguise it." * 

No wonder Rev. W. G. T. Shecld, D. D. (Pres- 
bj'terian), fourteen years later, wrote of a doctrine 
which he has tried to defend, even in the vear of 
grace 1887, u dark and awful/' 2 

1 Prac. Sermons, pp. 123-125. 

2 Guilt of the Pagan, 1864, p. 23. 



54 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

Henry Rogers agrees with the foregoing, and shows 
us what would be the wretchedness of all benevo- 
lent, sensitive souls, should the old horrors be fully 
realized : — 

" For my part I fancy I should not grieve if the whole race of 
mankind died in its fourth year. As far as we can see, I do not 
know that it would be a thing much to be lamented." 1 

Rev. Dr. W. W. Patton (Congregational) declares 
the idea of endless torment — 

"revolting to our moral sense, ... To assert gravely, then, that 
the heathen who have never heard of Christ are shut out from 
all possible hope of pardon, and are not in a salvable position in 
their present circumstances, is to offend the moral sense of 
thoughtful men, as well as that of the common multitude. . . . 
Such a theory practically denies the divine grace by suspending 
its exercise, so far as the heathen (the majority of the human 
race) are concerned, upon the action of those already enlight- 
ened. It declares that there is no possible mercy for the heathen 
unless Christians choose to carry the gospel to them. Does it 
seem rational, or in harmony with the universality and freedom 
of God's grace, that the only possibility of salvation for the 
mass of mankind should be suspended, not on anything within 
their control, but on the conduct of men on the opposite side 
of the globe ? By such representations the minds of men are 
shocked, and a reaction takes place, which is unfavorable, not 
only to the cause of missions, but to evangelical religion as well." 2 

A few years later Dr. Patton, then editor of the 
Chicago " Advance," thus confessed judgment : — 

"Do you imagine that only Universalists shudder at the idea 
of eternal ruin of souls ? All men share your dread of the fact, 
and would gladly reject the doctrine. We have had neighbors, 

i Grevson Letters, i. 34. 2 Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1858. 



EVIL INFLUENCE OF THE CREEDS. 55 

friends, and dear relatives, who have died giving no evidence of 
Christian character, but of quite the opposite, and we should be 
overjoyed that at least we should all meet above, holy and happy. 
I frankly acknowledge that it would lift a dark cloud from the 
world, and a heavy load from my heart could I believe your 
doctrine ! " 

And the same journal said of Lady Byron's 
Universalism : — 

" It is natural and pleasant to indulge in such a dream, and, 
like many another dream, we could wish it were true." 

Volumes might be written on the scepticism, dis- 
trust of God, melancholy, and despair, resulting often 
in suicide, and other ill effects caused by the procla- 
mation of these creeds, and belief in them. 

The great parent of modern infidelity is the doc- 
trine of endless punishment. On this point the 
advocates of the doctrine and infidels agree. 

Says George Sand : — 

"The Roman Church . . . committed suicide on the day she 
made God implacable and damnation eternal." 

And sa}'s Leslie Stephen : — 

" If this be the logical result of accepting theories, better 
believe in no God at all." 1 

John Stuart Mill said : — 

"Compared with this [endless punishment], every other ob- 
jection to Christianity sinks into insignificance." 2 

Mill also says : — 

1 English Thought in Eighteenth Century. 

2 Autobiography, p. 41 ; Three Essays, p. 114. 



56 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

i 

" If, instead of the glad tidings that there exists a Being in 
whom all the excellencies which the highest human mind can 
conceive exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I am informed 
that the world is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, 
but what they are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles 
of his government, except that the highest human morality 
which we are capable of conceiving does not sanction them, con- 
vince me of it and I will bear my fate as I may. But when 
I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call 
this being by the names which express and affirm the high- 
est human morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. 
Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one 
thing which he shall not do ; he shall not compel me to wor- 
ship him. I will call no being good who is not what I mean 
when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures ; and if such a 
being can sentence me to hell for not so calling, to hell I will 
go." 

Dean Milman gives his testimony as follows : — 

" To the eternity of hell torments there is and ever must be, 
notwithstanding the peremptory decree of dogmatic theology, 
and the reverential dread in many minds of tampering with 
what seems to be the language of the New Testament, a tacit 
repugnance.'' 1 

Rev. Baldwin Brown, of England, asks : — 

"How can any one who even dips into the current literature 
help perceiving that this is one of the main causes of the aliena- 
tion from Christianity of the educated mind ? " 2 

The poet sings his indignation thus : — 

" Were it not thus, King of my salvation, 
Many would curse to thee, and I, for one, 
Fling thee thy bliss and snatch at thy damnation, 
Scorn and abhor the shining of the sun. 

1 Latin Christianity, vi. 253. 2 Ch. Qu. Rev., July, 1877. 



EVIL INFLUENCE OF THE CREEDS. 57 

Ring with a reckless shivering of laughter, 

Wroth at the woe which thou hast seen so long, 

Question if any recompense hereafter 
Waits to atone the intolerable wrong." 

Canon Farrar says : — 

"There are many of the highest intellects among the laity 
and among our most eminent literary and scientific men who 
regard the popular teaching respecting * endless torment ' as one 
of their most insuperable difficulties in the way of accepting 
the Christian faith." 

These expressions indicate the scepticism that 
exists in multitudes of minds that have been driven 
to reject the Christian faith by the thought that 
the dogma of eternal retribution is a tenet of 
Christianity. 

Rev. Dr. Atwood, in his " Fifty Years' Progress " 
(in America) describes some of the disastrous effects 
of these doctrines ; and with these cogent presenta- 
tions we conclude this chapter : — 

"If we could place ourselves in the midst of the society of 
one hundred years ago, we should presently become aware that 
the most intelligent men and women of the day — especially 
those in public or prominent station — had very little interest 
in, or respect for, the prevailing Christianity. We should find 
such men as Fisher Ames, James Otis, John Adams, Benjamin 
Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Ethan Allen, Nathaniel Greene, 
in the higher circles of the communities to which they respec- 
tively belonged, and such men as Winthrop Sargent and Rich- 
ard Gridley in inferior ranks, either quietly ignoring the Church, 
or, when pressed, boldly ridiculing its abhorrent and absurd 
dogmas. The fact is, in 1776, as for fifty years before and 



58 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

nearly as long afterwards, there was no place inside the Church, 
nor even within nominal fellowship, for any intelligent, self- 
respecting man who had outgrown the unreasonable and mon- 
strous dogmas of the Calvinistic theology. Every j T ear the 
ranks of those stigmatized as deists or infidels by the clergy 
were largely recruited. The churches were losing the ablest, 
brightest, and most influential men of the day, to the great 
injury of the loser and the lost. . . . There was no genuine 
Christian truth offered in the market. The preachers uni- 
formly taught for doctrine the commandments of men ; and 
the most irrational and abominable commandments, too, that 
the folly or malevolence of men ever devised. It will surely be 
set down in the fair, clear record of impartial history that the 
bad theology of the early American churches changed their 
good tendency of freedom and toleration into censoriousness, 
exclusiveness, and bigotry ; that on account of this fatal change 
they alienated the best minds from their influence and fellow- 
ship ; and that the future which the remorseless logic of events 
mapped out before the Calvinistic churches of this country a 
century ago was one of diminishing numbers, influence, and 
intellectual power. . . . Consider now that at the time of 
which I am speaking there had not arisen anywhere within the 
pale of Christian faith a sect that pretended to interpret Chris- 
tianity on rational principles, or that ventured to suggest even 
the probability that God might not cast off forever any of his 
children for mere errors of opinion ; . . . the recognized ortho- 
doxy, a type of religious thinking and preaching more learnedly 
absurd, and piously blasphemous, and ingeniously unreasonable, 
than the world ever elsewhere saw." 

It was at this period, and under the circumstances 
so well described above, that the doctrines of the 
Universalists took their rise and began their remark- 
able career of progress. Some of the results of this 
new influence in religious thought will be described 
in the following chapters. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONCESSIONS ON VITAL WORDS AND PHRASES. 

A CAREFUL study of the subject, and a collation 
of all accessible authorities shows that for a 
hundred years there has been a constant modifica- 
tion of opinion in the direction of the positions of 
Universalist thinkers and scholars. The alteration 
of opinion b}' Biblical critics of all schools besides 
those of our own church has always been toward, 
and never from our views. So true is this that it 
would not be difficult to quote from recognized lead- 
ers in other churches definitions of terms and even 
exegeses of passages of Scripture that really sur- 
render all the ancient positions, and admit that our 
principles of exposition, and even our application of 
them are correct. In fact, the first ray of light that 
began the process of enlightenment in the "ortho- 
dox" churches was probably. the discoveries of can- 
did " orthodox'' scholars. 

For example, take the pivotal words of the contro- 
versy between the advocates of endless punishment 
and their opponents, — the words rendered "ever- 
lasting" and "eternal." When the great modern 



60 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

controversy began, the Universalis! positions were 
scouted ; now the best scholars in all partialist 
churches substantially admit our conclusions. 

The words <uwi/, auoi/ios, etc., rendered "eternal," 
" everlasting," " forever," are spoken of by the best 
critics as not necessarilv denoting endless duration. 
See the following authorities : — 

Hesycliius: "An interval denoting time, sometimes infinite 
when spoken of God." 

Schleusner : "A space of time to be determined by the person 
or things spoken of, — a long-enduring, but still definite period 
of time.' 

Macknight (Scotch Presbyterian): "These words, being am- 
biguous, are always to be understood according to the nature and 
circumstances to which they are applied. They who understand 
these words in a limited sense when applied to punishment put 
no forced interpretation upon them." 

Alex. Campbell: " Its radical idea is indefinite duration." 

The eminent German scholar, Olshausen, says : — 

" The Bible is deficient in an expression for timelessness. All 
the Biblical expressions imply or denote long periods." 

Even Augustine caught a glimpse of the fact that 
his followers for centuries overlooked. He said : — 

" I would not say this so as to seem to close the door to a more 
careful consideration as to the punishments of the lost, and the 
sense in which they are in Scripture called eternal." l 

And Windet declared : — 

"The frequent ledort doroth of the Rabbis ("to generations 
of generations") the equivalent of cis tons aionas ton aionon 

1 Commentarv on Matt. xxv. 46. 



VITAL WORDS AND PHRASES. 61 

("forever and ever") of the New Testament, meant a finite 
period." 1 

But until recently such views were rare and ex- 
ceptional. Still, as Archdeacon Farrar truly ob- 
serves : — 

" Dark as is the prospect of wicked men, awful as may seem 
their ultimate doom, it would yet be sinful and faithless to 
quench every apparent gleam of hope respecting their future 
lot which to some eyes has always seemed to be dimly discern- 
ible on the far horizon." 2 

Dr. Isaac Watts caught the idea, even in his day : 

" There is not one place of Scripture where the word ' death,' 
as it was first threatened in the law of innocency, necessarily 
signifies a certain miserable immortality of the soul, either to 
Adam, the actual sinner, or to his posterity." 3 

Even F. W. Faber admits: " In the use of the 
Scripture argument the triumph is completely and 
most remarkably on the milder side." 4 

John Stuart Blackie, Professor of Greek in the 
University of Edinburgh, a most eminent Greek 
scholar, philologist, and author, in " The Natural 
History of Atheism," says : — 

11 The doctrine of endless torment is a very ugly porter stand- 
ing at the gate of the house which is called Beautiful." 

Concerning the Greek word translated "eternal," 
he says : — 

i De Yita functora statu, p. 170, 1633. 

2 Mercy and Judgment, p. 179. 

3 Ruin and Decay of Mankind. 

4 Creator and Creature, iii. 332. 



62 THE LEAVEN AT WORK, 

" It needs no very profound scholarship to know that the word 
aionios, which we translate " everlasting," does not signify eter- 
nity absolutely and metaphysically, but only popularly, as when 
we say that a man is an eternal fool, meaning only that he is a 
very great fool." 

In April, 1886, Dr. Blackie wrote to the author of 
this book concerning aion, aidnios ; — 

" There can he no doubt that you have exhausted the philol- 
ogy of aion. Your patience is even more commendable than 
your learning. The fact of the matter is, that it is not so much 
Greek as common-sense that is required to see clearly in matters 
of this kind ; and common-sense will teach any man that the 
language of the Bible is throughout popular, and not to be 
strained to meet the demands of scholastic system-mongers." 

Eev. Dr. Deems renders Matthew xxv. 46, " These 
shall go awaj T into everlasting life, and the wicked 
into everlasting punishment," thus : — 

" They shall go away, — the righteous, that is, the humane, into 
continuous life; the wicked, that is the inhumane, into contin- 
uous punishment. He [Jesus] does not tell us how long that 
punishment and that life shall be. He uses the word aidnios, 
which specially conceals any definite conclusion. It may be 
endless, it may have an end." 1 

Bishop Warburton declares, — 

"In the Jewish Republic, both the rewards and punishments 
promised by Heaven were temporal only, — such as health, long 
life, peace, plenty, dominion, etc., diseases, premature death, 
war, famine, want, subjections, and captivity, etc And in no 
one place of the Mosaic Institutes, is there the least mention or 
intelligent hint of the rewards and punishments of another life." ■ 

1 Life of Jesus, p. 599. 2 Divine Legation. 



VITAL WORDS AND PHRASES. 63 

Whately says : — • 

"As for a future state of retribution in another world 
Moses said nothing to the Israelites about that." 1 

Jahn, whose work is the text-book in the An- 
dover Theological Seminary, says : — 

" We have no authority, therefore, decidedly to say that any 
other motives were held out to the ancient Hebrews to pursue 
good and avoid evil than those which were derived from the 
rewards and punishments of this life." 2 

Milraan says : — 

"The Lawgiver [Moses] maintains a profound silence on that 
fundamental article, if not of political, at least of religious legis- 
lation, — rewards and punishments in another life. He substi- 
tuted temporal chastisements and temporal blessings. On the 
violation of the constitution followed inevitably blighted har- 
vests, famine, pestilence, defeat, captivity ; on its maintenance, 
abundance, health, fruitfulness, victory, independence. How 
wonderfully the event verified the prediction of the inspired 
Legislator ! How invariably apostasy led to adversity — repent- 
ance and reformation to prosperity." 3 

Rev. James Challis, Professor of Experimental 
Philosophy at Cambridge, England, is reported by 
the " Christian Union " as expressing himself upon the 
question of eternal punishment. " He maintains that 
endless and eternal are not convertible terms ; that 
no such epithet as endless is applied in Scripture to 
future punishment ; and that the purpose of justice 
will be fulfilled when the great and final tribulation 
has availed for the purification and salvation of the 

1 Peculiarities Christ. Rel. 2 Arch. sect. 314. 

3 Hist. Jews, vol. i. 117. 



64 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

condemned. " Dr. Edward Beecher, on page 296 of 
his " History of Retribution/' saj's : — 

"Eternal punishment cannot be sustained or defended on the 
ground on which it is placed by the orthodox generally ; that is, 
the doctrine of the fall in Adam, as it is explained either by Dr. 
Hodge, of Princeton, or Dr. Shedd of New York, or Dr. Woods, 
of Andover, or any other Orthodox man whom I have ever read. 
I believe that to punish endlessly men born as any form of that 
system represents, and placed in this world as men are, under 
satanic delusions and powerful evil social influences, would be 
an extreme of injustice and cruelty that would entirely trans- 
form the character of God. Think of it ! This is the result 
of the toil of centuries, to vindicate God from the charge of the 
most atrocious injustice and cruelty that the mind of man can 
conceive. The acts seem to be unjust, merciless, unfeeling, and 
cruel, in God. No one has shown, or can show, that they are 
not ; the leaders acknowledge that they cannot do it, and yet 
the whole doctrine of eternal punishment is based on this trans- 
action ; it grows out of it, and is indissolubly connected 
with it. . . . It does not dishonor God to declare that he will 
not punish sinners forever. It does infinitely dishonor God to 
assert that he will punish sinners forever, if he has dealt with 
them as this doctrine of sinning in Adam teaches. It is a well- 
known fact that this doctrine, so connected with eternal punish- 
ment, has produced infidels, — God only knows how many." 

Prof. Tayler Lewis was one of the most erudite 
and profound of modern scholars and theologians 
of the " evangelical " school. He remarks: — 

"The preacher, in contending with the Universalist and the 
Restoration ist, would commit an error, and it may be, suffer a 
failure in his argument, should he lay the whole stress of it on 
the etymological or historical significance of the words alwu, 
alavios (rendered "everlasting," etc.), and attempt to prove that 
of themselves they necessarily carry the meaning of endless 



VITAL WORDS AND PHRASES. 65 

duration. In Matt. xxv. 46, These shall go away into the 
punishment of the world to come, etc., is all we can etymologi- 
cally or exegetically make of the word." 1 

Archdeacon Farrar thus sums up the concessions 

of multitudes of the best scholars in all churches : 

"' Endless torments' is an expression for which there is 
not an iota of direct Scriptural authority." 2 

The Greek words rendered hell (hades (Hebrew 
sheol) and Gehenna) , are admitted by the best Or- 
thodox critics not to signify what the popular mind 
understands by " hell." 

" We cannot pretend to decide d priori, or previous to the 
event, so far as to say that the punishments of hell must and will 
he certainly eternal." 3 

Windet saj^s : — 

"Most Jews lay down that Gehenna, as the Greeks do that 
Tartarus, is appointed not so much for the torment as for the 
purification of the most wicked. " 4 

Martin Luther (quoted by Farrar, ' ; Mercy and 
Judgment," p. 189) says : — 

" There was another question, whether God in or after death 
can "bestow faith, and through faith can save. We will not de- 
cide that question." 

Campbell thus defines 

" Gehenna, . . . the valley of Hinnom is a part of the pleasant 
wadi or valley which bounds Jerusalem on the south." 

1 Lange's Eccl. p. 48. 

2 Mercy and Judgment, p. 386. 

3 Dr. Doddridge Theol. Sect. 

4 De Vita functora statu, 1633. 

5 



66 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

Sehleusner: — 

"Gehenna, — the valley of the sons of Hinnom — was a 

delightful vale," etc. 

Bailey's English Dictionary on the same word : — 

"A place in the valley of the tribe of Benjamin, terrible for 
two sorts of fire in it, that wherein the Israelites sacrificed their 
children to the idol Moloch, and also another, kept continually 
burning to consume the dead carcasses and filth of Jerusalem." 

Parkhurst, in his Lexicon, referring to this passage, 
says : — 

" The phrase here translated ' hell-fire ' (literally 'gehenna of 
fire') does, I apprehend, in its outward and primary sense, 
relate to that dreadful doom of being burnt alive in the valley 
of Hinnom." 

Oar Hebrew friends have their word to speak on 

this question. 

Rabbi R. Lasker : — 

" Ours is the religion of humanity, and we do not believe that 
the all-wise, loving Father will consign to endless torture any 
of His creatures. As to the future life we know nothing, except 
we believe that the good will be rewarded, and the evil will receive 
the due penalty of their sins. But everlasting punishment — 
oh, no; we do not believe in that." 

Dr. Wise, a rabbi of Cincinnati, says : — 

" That the ancient Hebrews had no knowledge of hell is evi- 
dent from the fact that their language has no term for it. When 
they in after times began to believe in a similar place, they were 
obliged to borrow the word * Gehinnom,' ' the valley of Hinnom,' 
a place outside of Jerusalem, which was the receptacle for the 
refuse of the city, — a locality which by its offensive smell 
and sickening miasma was shunned, until vulgar superstition 
surrounded it with hobgoblins. In the Mishnah of the latest 



VITAL WORDS AND PHRASES. 67 

origin, the word ' Gehinnom ' is used as a locality of punishment 
for evil-doers, and hence had been so used at no time before the 
third century, A. D." 

Dr. Lilienthal, another learned rabbi, says : — 

" The Valley of Gehinnom, situated on the southeast of Jeru- 
salem, and formerly dedicated to Moloch, the fire-idol, gave the 
title to their notions of hell. But, though their writings speak 
of hell and hell-fire, yet the} 7 never dreamt of eternal punish- 
ment. Their teaching asserted the wicked and evil-doers have 
to suffer for twelve months a punishment adequate to their 
crimes and vices, but that after this term of retribution they too 
are released. Even the dark mediaeval notions of the rabbis 
abhorred the idea of eternal punishment." 

Trench, on the Parables, says : — 

" Neither [' sheol ' nor ■ hades '] is hell, though to issue in it." 

Dr. Knapp : — 

" Neither of these [' sheol ' nor * hades '] signifies the place of 
the damned." 

Dr. Hodge : — 

" To descend into hades or hell means nothing more than to 
descend to the grave," etc. 

A subscriber to the " Illustrated Christian Weekly," 
published b} T the American Tract Society, asked the 
editor of that paper the meaning of the statement 
that " Christ descended into hell." The editor re- 
plied : — 

"The shortest answer is, he died. It means nothing more 
nor less than that our Lord was dead till the third day. ' Hell ' 
here is hades; and 'hades ' means the state of departed spirits, — 
not the place of punishment at all." 



68 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

And yet every now and then the old abomination 
asserts itself, as some hereditary physical deformity 
will occasionally reappear in children. No longer 
ago than November, 1878, notwithstanding the ad- 
mission that " hades " is not " hell," and that Dives 
was not in endless torment, " The Sabbath School 
Teacher's Quarterly," of Chicago (1878), thus took 
the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus as literal : 

" See Dives in the flames below, 
With burning thirst consumed, 
Writhing in torment, pain, and woe, — 
To endless sorrow doomed. 

" Chorus. — Sinners, beware, the warning take, 
Avoid the flames of hell; 
Escape the fiery, burning lake, 
That you in heaven may dwell. 

" With supplicating voice he cries, 
For comfort and relief. 
But Abr'am his request denies, 
Nor will assuage his grief. 
" Chorus. — Sinners, beware, etc. 

'•' The wretched beggar at his door, 
Ascends to joys above, 
To live in bliss forevermore, 
And praise redeeming love. 

4 * Chorus. — Sinners, beware, etc. 

"0 God, assist me by thy grace, 
To shun the pains of hell, 
Conduct me to thy heavenly place, 
Eternally to dwell. 
"Chorus. — Sinners, beware, etc." 



VITAL WORDS AND PHRASES. 69 

Bishop S. M. Merrill, Methodist, says 1 : — 

" 'Sheol * does not express duration. ' Tartarus ' (2 Pet. ii. 4) 
should have been transferred without translation (p. 24). ' Hades ' 
is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew * sheol ' (ib. ). It means the 
unseen world, the place of departed souls, and expresses nothing 
as to their character or condition; hence its true and only ap- 
plication is to the state of the dead between death and the resur- 
rection (p. 25). ' Gehenna ' is a proper name, — the name of a 
place well known, and should have been transferred and not 
translated (p. 26). ' Hades ' is applied never to anything beyond 
the resurrection (p. 28). Tartarus is the prison for the fallen 
angels this side of the judgment. It is therefore substantially 
the same as hades. Hades covers the entire ground this side of 
the resurrection. Its duration is limited. In the resurrection 
it will give up its dead and pass away, at least so far as we are 
concerned. Therefore the punishment in it is not forever " (pp. 
28-29). 

This concedes that the parable of the Rich Man and 
Lazarus does not teach endless punishment, for the 
place in which he was suffering is to pass awa} 7 . 
" The resurrection destroys both death and hades." 

The Revised Version surrenders the word "hell" 
wherever it is translated from " hades," and retains 
the original word, — one of the most important con- 
cessions yet made ; but to have been consistent, 
u . Tartarus" and " Gehenna" should have been al- 
lowed to stand untranslated. 

" Hades " is the original for " hell " in the parable of 
the Rich Man and Lazarus, and is found many times 

1 New Test. Idea of Hell, 1878, p. 23. 

2 Ibid., p. 76. 



70 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

in the Greek Old Testament. Dr. Dorner holds that 
"hades" is used in the New Testament as a general 
term for the intermediate place of the dead, — just as 
the Greeks used it. So Delitzsch ; and this has been 
put forth by Joseph Cook, in one of his Monday lec- 
tures. It is being generally adopted by the best 
scholarship. This view has been advocated by Uni- 
versalist writers for a century. It is comforting to 
see " evangelical " scholars, one by one, adopting our 
conclusions. When the religious history of the past 
century comes to be accurately written, it will be re- 
corded that the Universalist Church has led the van 
on matters of eschatology. Every change in the 
popular view of hell has been directly toward the 
expositions on which we have been insisting for a 
hundred years. 

All critics of any prominence concede that the Old 
Testament does not teach endless punishment. This 
virtually concedes that the New Testament does not 
teach it, for the same words that describe the dura- 
tion of punishment in the New are employed for the 
same purpose in the Old, — the words rendered " ever- 
lasting," " eternal," etc. The original for " everlast- 
ing" and " eternal" is often applied to punishment in 
that part of the Bible as in the other. (Jer. xxiii. 
40; Dan. xii. 2.) And not only so, but the words 
that are descriptive of the locality or condition in 
which the punished surfer are the same in both ; that 



VITAL WORDS AND PHRASES. 71 

is, " gehenna " and 4 ' hades.'' Now, if " everlasting," 
"forever," etc., and " gehenna " and " hades " in the 
Old Testament do not teach endless punishment, why 
should the same terms in the New be regarded as 
teaching the doctrine? Does not the concession 
concede and establish the Universalist position? 

The New Testament makes use of a furnace fire 
to denote punishment. So does the Old Testament. 
(Isai. xxxi. 9.) The book of Revelation speaks of 
a lake of fire and brimstone, in which sinners suf- 
fer " day and night forever and ever." The book of 
Isaiah has its match, in a land of fire and brimstone ; 
and the duration of its punishment is denoted b} T the 
same terms; and of both it is said, "The smoke 
ascendeth up forever and ever." (See Isai. xxxiv. 
8-10.) These statements accord with the opinions 
of the greatest of modern commentators, Lange, 
who saj's : — 

"That the Divine puirishlnents, even beyond the grave and 
deep in the realm of death, have a tendency to conversion, al- 
though they glorify God's righteousness and guard his rights, 
Peter has quite decisively shown. How, then, can it be regarded 
as a glorifying of God when the Divine punishments which are 
awarded to the lost are considered solely as inflictions of ven- 
geance or of retribution ? In such a case these punishments are 
to be no more punishment in the full meaning of the word; and 
in this penal region, justice abandoned by grace is no more \o 
stimulate, but to kill. If men will separate in this way justice 
from grace, they make a separation in God ; and if, in conse- 
quence, they assign to justice through an endless eternity the 
office of tormenting in hell, so to speak, in a wholly isolated 



72 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

position, half-severed from the whole living God, and sundered 
from grace and mercy, then in very deed they assign to justice 
a most painful office. But God is everywhere present as God, 
even in hell. And if one acknowledge the article, * I believe 
in God Almighty,' one must feel that there is reference to the 
almightiness of his love also. But if his almightiness has 
eternal sway, it has a corresponding eternal operation. People, 
therefore, should not think that they are zealous for the glory of 
God, when in spirit they bind man endlessly to the evil conse- 
quences of his unbelief in this world and then endlessly bind 
the justice of God by itself to the endlessly bound man. . . . 
This sway of God demands an eternity, but for an eternity he 
does not lack ; he himself is the Eternal. But that he is cer- 
tain of his goal is to us made just as certain by the sway of 
Qhrist lasting after the final judgment, across the seons. He 
will destroy death as the last enemy. But how could he destroy 
death without destroying sin, which is the essential death, — 
the seed of death V' 1 

1 Dogmatik, ii. sec. 1294. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE CONSENSUS OF COMMENTATORS. 

"^TOT only have expositors and exegetes of all 
schools made such admissions in matters of 
criticism and exegesis as yield the points in dispute 
between Universalists and their opponents, but the 
great " proof-texts " of endless punishment have re- 
ceived such explanations from learned Partialist and 
un sectarian scholars as concede that the texts quoted 
against us are not opposed to our conclusions. The 
more learned and candid the exegete, the more 
in harmony with our views are his expositions. 
" Paige's Selections from Eminent Commentators " 
exhibits these opinions at length. We will here in- 
stance the more prominent : — 

1. The kingdom of heaven or of God (Matt. iii. 2, etc.), from 
which some are said to be shut out, is the reign of Christ on 
earth, and not the final condition of things in the eternal world. 
— Hammond, Lightfoot, Doddridge, Whitby, etc. 

2. Wrath to come (Matt. iii. 7, etc.) is the overthrow of 
the Jewish nation. — Pearce, Hammond, Clarke, Lightfoot, 
Wetstein. 

3. Cast into the fire (Matt. iii. 10, vii. 19), judgments on the 
Jewish people in this world. — Hammond, Pearce, Beausobre 
and Lenfant, Lightfoot, Clarke, Kenrick. 



74 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

4. Unquenchable fire (Matt. iii. 12, Luke iii. 17), the temporal 
judgments of God then about to come. — Pea'rce, Hammond, 
Cappe, Clarke, Kenrick. 

5. In no case enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. v. 20). Henry, 
Beza, and others say " enter the Christian Church on earth." 

6. In danger of hell-fire (Matt. v. 22), exposed to burning in 
Gehenna, a valley near Jerusalem, where criminals were burned. 
— Clarke, Parkhurst (primarily), Wynne, Wakefield, Mac- 
knight, Heylin, Rosenmuller, Townsend. 

7. The uttermost farthing (Matt. v. 26). This language 
applies to earthly affairs, and not to a post-mortem condition. — 
Dutch Annotations, Pearce, Tomson's Beza, Rosenmuller, Clarke. 

8. Cast into hell (Matt. v. 29, 30; xviii. 8, 9 ; Mark ix. 43-18). 
Most critics apply this language to a place of endless torment ; 
though all admit that "hell" ("gehenna") literally denotes the 
valley of Hinnom. 

9. The strait gate (Matt. vii. 13, 14 ; Luke xiii. 24), enter- 
ing upon the enjoyment of the gospel. — Pearce and others. 

10. Depart from me, etc. (Matt. vii. 23 ; Luke xiii. 23-30), 
the vanity of depending on any other hope than the gospel, in 
the then coming calamities on Judea. — Cappe, Jones. 

11. The house fell and great ivas the fall of it (Matt. vii. 27 ; 
Luke vi. 49). This language is applied to this life by Tomson's 
Beza, Diodati, Rosenmuller, Kenrick. 

12. Outer darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth (Matt. viii. 
12; xxii. 2-14; xxiv. 45-51; xxv. 14-30; Luke xiii. 23-30). 
The best writers refer this to judgments then about to come on 
the earth. — Lardner, Whitby, Gilpin, Clarke, Pearce, Ham- 
mond, Kenrick. 

13. Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment (Matt. x. 
15), the woes coming on Jerusalem. — Hammond, Pearce, Wake- 
field, Clarke, Wetstein. 

14. He that endureth to the end shall be saved (Matt. x. 22, 
xxiv. 12-14 ; Mark xiii. 13). Faithfulness to the end of the 
persecutions prophesied to those who heard Christ would secure 
men from the temporal destruction that was to befall others. — 
Hammond, Clarke, Whitby, Wetstein, Lardner. 



THE CONSENSUS OF COMMENTATORS. 75 

15. Destroy soul and body in hell (Matt. x. 28 ; Luke xii. 5). 
This is usually applied to the final torment of the soul, though 
the commentators all agree that hell (gehenna) was a well-known 
locality near Jerusalem, where criminals' bodies were burnt. 
(See 8, above.) 

16. Capernaum brought down to hell (Matt. xi. 22-24 ; Mark 
vi. 11 ; Luke x. 12-15). "Hell" here is hades, which the Revised 
Version allows to stand, thus admitting that it does not mean 
"hell." It should never be rendered "hell," says Campbell, 
but it means here temporal destruction, and not a place of 
punishment after death. So say Hammond, Pearce, Kenrick, 
Clarke, Wetstein, Whitby, Ainsworth, Hesychius, Beausobre 
and Lenfant. 

17. Not be forgiven in this world or in the ivorld to come 
(Matt. xii. 31-32 ; Mark iii. 29 ; Luke xii. 10), the Jewish and 
the Christian ages or dispensations. "World" (aion) should 
be "age" or "aeon." — Hammond, Gilpin, Grotius, Pearce, 
Wakefield, Clarke. 

18. Bind them in bandies to burn them ; furnace of fire ; 
wailing and gnashing of teeth, etc. (Matt. xiii. 24-30, 37-43, 
47-50). This was to take place at the end of the Mosaic dispen- 
sation, and at the beginning of the Christian, when the rebellious 
Jews were destroyed temporall} 7 . — Pearce, Hammond, Cappe. 

19. Lose his own soul (Matt. xvi. 25, 26 ; Mark viii. 35-37 ; 
Luke ix. 24, 25). "Soul" should be "life ;" the passage does 
not refer to the immortal soul. — Pearce, Wakefield, Campbell, 
Clarke. 

20. The Son of man coming in the glory of his Father (Matt. 
xvi. 27, 28 ; Mark viii. 38 ; ix. 1). This occurred while those 
lived who heard the Saviour's words. — Gill, Wynne, Clarke, 
Pearce, Hammond, Knatchbull, Lightfoot. 

21. Shall not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt, xviii. 3 ; 
Mark x. 15 ; Luke xviii. 17), the enjoyment of the Christian life 
on earth. — Gill, Hammond, Gilpin, Campbell. 

22. The greater damnation (Matt, xxiii. 14 ; Mark xii. 
40; Luke xx. 47), condemnation. — Farrar, Wynne, Pearce, 
Kenrick, Wetstein. (The Revision has eradicated the word 
"damnation "). 



76 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

23. The child of hell (Matt, xxiii. 15), a vile person. — Pearce, 
Wynne. 

24. Damnation of hell, temporal calamity, of which the climax 
was in Gehenna, " when the Jewish State should be destroyed " 
— Pearce, Theophylact. (See 22, above.) 

25. Foolish virgins, — the door was shut, etc. (Matt. xxv. 
1-3), the end of the Jewish State. — Pearce, Hammond, Clarke, 
Beausobre and Lenfant, Kosenmuller. 

26. Everlasting picnishm.ent (Matt. xxv. 46). The commen- 
tators admit that the coming here referred to w T as at the end of 
the Jewish State (see xxiv. 20), but most of them agree that 
while "everlasting" often means limited duration, this passage 
teaches endless punishment. All admit that the chapter gener- 
ally refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, but they think that 
somewhere the Saviour made a transition, and described the 
final judgment. It is amusing to read their differing attempts 
to denote the point of departure. Cappe applies all the lan- 
guage of chapters xxiv-xxv to Jerusalem. So do Wynne and 
others. 

27. Good for that man if he had not been born (Matt. xxvi. 
24 ; Mark xiv. 21 : Luke xxii. 22). A proverbial form of 
speech, not to be taken literally. — Hammond, Clarke. 

28. He that believeth not shall be damned (Matt. xvi. 16). 
Condemnation, suffering, is the unbeliever's lot. — Campbell, 
Home, Cappe. 

29. All likewise perish (Luke xiii. 3, 5), suffer temporally, 
as did those referred to in the context. — Hammond, Pearce, 
Whitby, Calmet, Scott, Doddridge. 

30. Tlie rich man in hell. The Kevision employs " hades " 
instead of "hell ;" and all commentators admit that " hades" 
does not denote hell. It is thought to be a parable by Lightfoot, 
Whitby, Hammond, Wakefield, Campbell, etc., and is applied 
to the condition of Jews and Gentiles in this world — an alle- 
gorical description of their condition here — by Lightfoot, Gill, 
Theophylact, Bate. 

31. Except a man be born again, he cannot sec the kingdom 
of God (John iii. 3 ; also, 1 Cor. vi. 9-11 ; Gal. v. 19-21 ; Eph. 



THE CONSENSUS OF C0MMEN1AT0RS. 77 

v. 5) refers to the necessity of a new birth in order to enjoy the 
higher life here. — Diodati, Pearce, Whitby, Hammond, Gilpin. 

32. The resurrection of damnation (John v. 29) refers to a 
spiritual awakening here. — Lightfoot, Doddridge, Whitby. 

33. Die in your sins ; where I am, thither ye cannot come 
(John vii. 34 ; viii. 21), refers to immediate following, but does 
not mean shall literally never come, as Jesus said the same to 
his disciples (xiii. 33). — Gilpin, Elsley, Doddridge, Calmet, 
Grotius. 

34. The son of perdition (John xvii. 12 ; 2 Thess. ii. 3) means 
that he resembles that for which he is named ; as " son of thun- 
der," " son of wisdom," etc. — Rosenmiiller, Wakefield, W T hitby. 

35. Go to his own place (Acts i. 25), to the punishment he 
deserved. — Clarke, Gilpin. 

36. What must I do to be saved ? (Acts xvi. 30), to preserve 
himself, to avoid punishment for what had befallen the pris- 
oners. — Rosenmiiller, Wakefield, Kenrick. 

37. Judgment to come (Acts xxiv. 25), the calamities about 
to come on the times. — Haweis, Kingsley. 

38. The day of wrath (Rom. ii. 5), coming temporal judg- 
ments. — Hammond, Whitby. 

39. Vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction (Rom. ix. 22), 
the Jewish people. — Macknight, Locke, Clarke. 

40. Everlasting , destruction from the presence of the Lord (2 
Thess. i. 6-10), temporal destruction. — Hammond, Cappe, Gill. 

41. Eternal judgment (Heb. vi. 2), seonian, or spiritual 
judgments in this world. — Pearce. 

42. Impossible to renew (Heb. vi. 4-8). A strong expression 
for difficult to renew. — Macknight, Rosenmiiller, Clarke, 
Calmet. 

43. After this [death] the judgment (Heb. ix. 27), the cere- 
monial death, and sentence of judgment pronounced by the 
high priest. — Cappe. 

44. Judgment without mercy, severe punishment, not literally 
without mercy. — Whitby, Grotius. 

45. If the righteous scarcely be saved, ivhere shall the ungodly 
and the sinner appear ? ( 1 Pet. iv. 17, 18). If the Christians 



78 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

barely escaped the calamities of those times, what would become 
of the rebellious Jews ? — Whitby, Lightfoot, Gilpin, Macknight, 
Calmet. 

46. The fallen angels (2 Pet. ii. 4-9). A fable in the Book of 
Enoch, used to illustrate the fate of the Jews. — Gilpin, Pyle. 

47. The destruction of the world (2 Pet. iii. 7-13). Allegor- 
ical description of the destruction of the Jewish dispensation. 

— Hammond, Witsius, Lightfoot, Wetstein. 

48. Sin unto death (1 John v. 16). Temporal death is meant. 

— Beausobre and Lenfant, Home, Gilpin, Benson. 

49. The vengeance of eternal fire, the fire that destroyed 
Sodom and Gomorrah. — Whitby, Gilpin, Benson, Hammond, 
Doddridge. 

50. The second death (Kev. ii. 11 ; xx. 5, 6), the second 
overthrow of the Jews. — Hammond, Wetstein, Lightfoot, Rosen- 
muller. 

51. Wrath of the Lamb (Rev. vi. 12-17), the overthrow of 
Jerusalem and Rome. — Hammond, Lightfoot, Townsend, 
Brownell, Doddridge. 

52. The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever 
(Rev. xiv. 9-11), temporal judgments soon to follow for ages 
of ages. — Hammond, Grotius, Cowles. 

53. The lake that burns with fire and brimstone (Rev. xxi. 8), 
destruction in the present life. — Hammond. 

It will be seen that nearly all the severest terms 
employed in what are sometimes called the " Bible 
threatenings " are explained by the very best and 
most eminent critics, of all creeds, in harmony with 
our faith. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE. 

HTHP] poets and other writers have been the expo- 
nents and promoters of the broadening faith of 
Christendom ; they have in fact gone in advance of 
the theologians. Even when the Church had but 
here and there a voice, the poet was singing the 
new faith ; and its prevalence in the pages of the 
great writers has kept pace with the growth of 
literature. In the days of darkness, when there was 
little literature, the air was hostile. The rose of 
Sharon could not blossom in the chill climate of the 
mediaeval times. Intelligence and philanthropy are 
the sun and rain by which it germinates and flour- 
ishes. While the truth could manage to exist, and 
feebly appear and reappear, in dark and barbarous 
epochs, it could only really thrive in an atmosphere 
of light. Accordingly, though some of the early 
patristic writers — notably the 'greatest and best in 
all the early centuries, Origen (a. d. 180-254) — 
announced it ; though man}' of the most distinguished 
scholars of the Middle Ages avowed it ; though 
prominent writers and thinkers of more modern 



80 THE LEA VEN A T WORK. 

periods gave it expression ; though the mass of 
German theologians, English Unitarians, and large 
numbers in the English Establishment and excep- 
tionally prominent men in the English Congrega- 
tional Church have indulged the i; larger hope," it 
was simultaneously with the rise of modern literature 
that it advanced as never before. Indeed, it may 
be said that outside of sectarian literature, in the 
field of belles-lettres, and notably in poetiy, there 
have been few writers of note who have not been 
en rapport with the gospel of eternal hope. If 
here and there a Pollok has essayed the discordant 
note of partialism, his voice has been drowned in 
the harmonious music of the great choir of sweet 
singers who have chanted the broader faith. Mod- 
ern literature contains few utterances at variance 
with the hope of Universal Redemption, while 
most of the immortal names are identified with 
its explicit announcement. 

John Milton (1612-1662) said that endless pun- 
ishment questions and blasphemes God's goodness 
and greatness and leaves them without defence ; 
and his intimate friend, Cromwell's chaplain, Jereni}' 
White, wrote a book defending universal salvation ; 
Bishop Burnet says that Sir Harry Vane (1612- 
1662) was a Universalist ; the great Ralph Cud- 
worth (1617-1688) was outspoken on the subject; 
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), and Daniel Defoe 
(1661-1731), author of " Robinson Crusoe," in- 



THE INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE. 81 

dulged the same hope; Dr. Watts (1674-1748) 
thought God would listen to the repentant in hell ; 
William Law (1686-1761) taught the "purification 
of all human nature;" Bishop Butler (1692-1752) 
concluded that " order and right cannot but prevail 
finally;" James Thomson (1700-1740) prophesied 
the period when "one unbounded spring shall en- 
circle all," when " Universal Love " would go on 
forever, — 

" From seeming evil still educing good, 
And better thence again, and better still, 
In infinite progression." 

Dr. Johnson (1709-1784) declared that " God de- 
signs the happiness of all his creatures ; and as in 
the use of means he cannot be mistaken because he 
is omniscient, so he cannot be defeated, because he 
is almighty ; " Akenside (1721-1770) depicts the day 
when 

" Infinite perfection shall close the scene." 

Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) argued the sal- 
vation of all as a necessaiy consequence of the death 
of Christ for all ; Robert Burns (1759-1796), accord- 
ing to Allan Cunningham, " carried his universal 
good-will so far as to entertain hopes of universal 
redemption and the restoration of the doomed spirits 
to power and lustre," and his poems express the 
spirit of that divine hope; Joanna Baillie's wwks 
(1762-1851) teem with the idea of universal deliver- 



82 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

ance from evil; Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) looked 
forward " to the day when tears shall be wiped from 
all eyes;" Coleridge (1770-1834), John Foster 
(1770-1843), Wordsworth (1770-1850), Southey 
(1774-1843), Lamb (1775-1834), Mrs. Sherwood 
(1775-1851), — all give their testimony to the broad- 
est faith; Moore (1779-1852) sings of the time 
when God shall his high task 

" consummate, 
And good from evil, love from hate, 
Shall be worked out through sin and pain, 
And fate shall loose her iron chain, 
And all be free, be bright, again." 

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) declared the fear of end- 
less suffering " the absnrdest as well as the most 
impious of all fears," and said, " If an angel were to 
tell me to believe in eternal punishment, I would not 
do it ; for it would better become me to believe the 
angel a delusion than God monstrous." De Quincey 
(1785-1859), Thomas Erskine of Linlathen (1788- 
1870), and Southwood Smith (1788-1861) elaborate 
the doctrine of universal salvation at great length ; 
Byron (1788-1824) prophesies the time when God 
shall " abolish hell " and bring in a time — 

" When man no more shall fall as once he fell, 
And even the verj 7- demons shall do well." 

Shelley (1792-1822), Bowring (1792-1872), Bryant 
(1794-1878), Townshend (1800-1868), Frederika 



THE INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE. 83 

Bremer (1801-1865), Emerson (1803-1882), Mau- 
rice (1806-1872), Longfellow (1807-1882), Whittier 
(1807-), Holmes (1809-), Tennyson (1809-), Mrs. 
Browning (1809-1861), Mary Carpenter p (1820-), 
Charles Sumner (1811-1874), Horace Greeley (1811- 
1872), Thackeray (1811-1863), Mrs. Stowe (1812-), 
Norman McLeod (1812-1872), Dickens (1812-1870), 
all explicitly give expression to a universal faith ; 
Robert Browning (1812—) is acknowledged to be 
"the poet of restoration ; " Charles Eeade (1814-1884) 
declares " endless punishment a fable ; philosophers 
always said so, and now even divines have given it 
up." Bailey (181 6-), in " Festus," may be said to 
have founded one of the greatest of poems on the 
doctrine of Universal Salvation ; the works of the 
Bronte sisters (1816-1855) overflow with it; Lowell 
(1819—) sings it; Kingsley (1819-1875) preaches it, 
so does Stopford Brooke ; it glows on almost every 
page of George Macdonald (1824-), and in the lines 
of Adelaide Procter (1825-1864) and Dinah Muloch 
(1826-1887) and Gerald Massey (1828-) ; it chal- 
lenges attention in Theodore Winthrop's works 
(1828-1861), and in Jean Ingelow (1830-) ; Canon 
Farrar (1831-), while he does not dogmatize universal 
salvation, does avow its possibility ; Robert Bulwer 
Lytton (1831-) utters its spirit, while Elizabeth 
Clephane's "Ninety and Nine" and Bennett's 
" Sweet B}' and By" sing the faith into multitudes 
of hearts ; Robert Buchanan (1841-), Mrs. Griswold 



84 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

(1842-), Florence Nightingale (1820-), the Gary sis- 
ters (1820-1871) and multitudes of others unite in 
the general strain of modern literature. It is liter- 
ally true that for a hundred years the great writers 
of England and America have borne testimony to 
the truth, and have exerted a might} 1 - influence in 
creating the wonderful change that public opinion 
has undergone and is now undergoing. English 
literature has been a powerful ally of those Univer- 
salist reformers who a century ago lifted their voices 
in the wilderness of religious error, and spoke in 
God's behalf. The progress of thought is a rich 
commentary on the prophecy of Dr. Benjamin Rush, 
written in 1791: " At present we wish liberty to 
the whole world ; but the next touch of the celestial 
magnet upon the human heart will direct it into 
wishes for the salvation of all mankind." 



CHAPTER VII. 

TRYING TO STEM THE CURRENT. 

A TTEMPTS have been made within a few years, 
in both the Methodist and Baptist churches 
and elsewhere, to turn back the hands on the dial 
of progress by repudiating the fundamental fact of 
Christianit}', the universal Fatherhood of God. It 
is seen by many, and conceded by some, as the 
following extracts will show, that the universal 
Fatherhood necessitates universal salvation. 

The Baptist Church officially denies God's univer- 
sal paternity, so far as that church permits any au- 
thoritative statements of its position. In March, 
1870, the Chicago " Standard" uttered the sentiment, 
and when reproached for it the kindly editor not 
only repudiated it, but denied that the paper had 
ever taught the heresy. It turned out that while 
the editor was out of the country, a temporary 
occupant of the editorial chair, a professor of 
theology, fulminated the editorial containing the 
falsehood. This relieved the paper and the editor, 
at the expense of the church ; for if a professor of 
theology cannot speak as one having authorit3 T , who 
can? 



86 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

This was the language of the " Standard " in March, 

1870: — 

" Where, in all the Scriptures, is God ever called the father 
of all men ? Where are all mankind said to he his children ? 
Men need to he born again, in order that they may become the 
children of God. If they were naturally the children of God, 
they would naturally be heirs of salvation, according to the 
apostle's argument (Rom. viii. 17), and would need no new 
birth to make them so. We regard this plausible assumption 
of the fatherly attitude of God toward all men, as one of the 
most unscriptural and mischievous of all prevailing errors." 

We had begun to settle down to the pleasing 
belief that the Baptist Church has concluded to join 
the other Protestant churches in agreeing that all 
men are the children of God, when the Cincinnati 
"Journal and Messenger," the Baptist organ of the 
great State of Ohio, uttered these identical words, 
so recently as on April 6th of the blessed year of 
grace 1881 : — 

"Among the dangerous theories abroad, and insinuating them- 
selves into the Christian church of to-day, none is more insid- 
ious or harmful than that quite commonly taught concerning 
the divine Fatherhood. Some years ago the idea that God is 
a universal Father, and that all men are his children by virtue 
of their creation, was left largely to such men as Edward Irving, 
and to the Universalists. We do not wonder that a certain 
church in New York, notable because the late Dr. E. H. Chapin 
was its pastor, is called the "Church of the Divine Paternity." 
It is upon their interpretation of the divine Fatherhood that 
Universalists rest their cause. Granted their theory of the 
Fatherhood, and Universalism can sustain itself against the 
world. 



TRYING TO STEM THE CURRENT. 87 

" Let it be shown that God stands in the relation of a Father 
towards man, and beyond a peradventure every soul will finally 
be saved. God has never cast away his children and has dis- 
tinctly declared that he will not do so. He has predestinated 
them to be conformed to the image of his Son. When men can 
rightfully claim the eternal and omnipotent God as their Father, 
their future is secure." 

Observe these words : If God is the Father of 
all men, " Universalism can sustain itself against 
the icorld ; . . . beyond a peradventure every soid 
will finally be saved' 9 

The genealogy of our Lord traces an unbroken 
chain from Adam down. As truly as Jesus was the 
Son of God, so were Noah ; and Shem, and David ; 
and as all mankind since are children of those 
named in the genealogy, or of their brothers or 
sisters, so all mankind are children of God, as cer- 
tainly as the\' are children of Adam. The heredit} 7 
of every man is directly from God, via Adam. 

But let it not be forgotten that the " Journal and 
Messenger," and "Standard" claim that only a 
portion of mankind are the children of God, while 
the rest of the world are either children of the devil 
or illegitimate. How man}' Baptists will agree that 
this is genuine Christianit}' ? 

Our Methodist brethren are falling into the same 
error, in order to escape the logical result of the 
universal Fatherhood, — universal holiness and hap- 
piness. Will these brethren follow the lead of Bishop 
Merrill, or will the} 7 agree with the indignant 



88 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

preacher of that church who, when Bishop Merrill 
occupied the chair of the Conference in Cincinnati, 
exclaimed, — 

" There he sits : he has a sermon two hours long, in which 
he attempts to prove that mankind are not the children of God, 
— the most damnable heresy ever uttered ! " 

Bishop Merrill holds that all children w T hen they 
are born, are "children of the devil." He said, in 
a sermon preached in Manhattan, Kansas, and 
printed in the "Naturalist": — 

" There is a popular idea that all are horn in the image of 
God. There is no countenance to that doctrine in the Bible. 
We are in the image of God only after being born into his image. 
The expression is flippantly used of * the Fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of man, ' but it is so used as to sap the very 
foundation of Christianity. The sonship into the family of God 
is only predicated on our new creation. To be born is to begin 
to live. In receiving Christ we receive power to become sons of 
God by being born of God. The new birth is divine ; the life 
of God in the soul ; become one with Christ ; we are made par- 
takers of the Holy Ghost ; are endowed with that life which is 
one with Christ. The Fatherhood of God has its foundation in 
the incarnation of his only-begotten Son. Up to the hour of 
the new birth we were the children of the devil, but in regener- 
ation is the germ of a new creation, and all the spiritual powers 
of our being are brought into captivity to Christ. Old things 
pass away and we are not only in name his children, but we can 
know that we are sons and daughters of God Almighty." 

Bishop Merrill's Methodist God is a remarkable 
specimen. He creates mankind, not in his own 
image, but in the image of the devil, who is the father 



TRYING TO STEM THE CURRENT. 89 

of all souls, and remains their father, and they remain 
his children until they are born again ! And this, too, 
in opposition to the plainest declarations of Scripture, 
which tell us that at the first (Genesis i. 27) " God 
created man in his own image," and that after the 
"fall" man did not lose that image (Gen. iii. 22) ; 
" The man has become as one of us." And certainly 
as late as the time of the apostle it was said (James 
iii. 9), " Men are made after the similitude of God." 
We would like to ask this remarkable bishop if all 
men are not always under obligation to obey the 
Saviour, and pray, ;4 Our Father, who art in heaven ; " 
and if so, would not the great majority of men be 
worshipping the devil if the}' called on their Father ; 
or, if they should address this language to God, 
would they be believing a lie in supposing they 
were really addressing their Father? Or is Bishop 
Merrill ignorant of what he is talking about? 

And this church declares that baptism revolution- 
izes the nature, and transforms a child of the devil 
into a child of God. The Methodist Catechism 
says : — ■ 

" Question, What did your baptism do for you ? 
Answer, It made me a child of God." 

Notwithstanding this unchristian doctrine is im- 
plied in the Methodist Catechism, it must be ac- 
knowledged that the Methodist ministry are quite 
unanimous in preaching the universal Fatherhood 



90 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

of God. It is one of the inconsistencies of a church 
never noted for being very logical, but an incon- 
sistency more honorable than following the lead of 
Bishop Merrill in denying the fundamental fact of 

Christianity. 

«/ 

Such attempts to sweep back the incoming Atlantic 
will never be successful, however zealously the 
theological Dame Partingtons may ply their mops. 
The doctrine of the Divine Paternity is so deepty 
inwoven in the texture of human nature that it will 
assert and vindicate its truthfulness in the instincts 
and intuitions of the human soul. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE THEOLOGICAL TEEND. 
/ 

A CENTURY ago the doctrines enunciated in the 
prevailing creeds and by their advocates, as 
given in the foregoing pages, held a sway unques- 
tioned and supreme. Not a pulpit protested; 
scarcely a word of print adverse to them was being 
published, when Belly and Murray in England, 
Purves and Douglas in Scotland, and Murray and 
Winchester in America, unfurled the banner of uni- 
versal love. They cast the divine leaven of truth 
into the world, and from that hour the transforma- 
tion has been going on. Every day has witnessed 
progress. The darkness has paled. The light has 
brightened. When they began their blessed work, 
nearly every cardinal doctrine of Christianity had 
been abandoned, and was rejected by all the sects. 
The universal Fatherhood of God was everywhere 
ignored. The universal brotherhood of man was 
rarely asserted. The endless damnation of non- 
elect infants and of all the heathen, and of the great 
majority of mankind besides, was everywhere be- 
lieved ; literal fire and brimstone was supposed to 
be the doom of the wicked ; belief in Election and 



92 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

Reprobation, a substitutional Atonement, and a 
scheme of general falsehood, as monstrous as it 
was false, hung like a pall over the Christian 
world, ate like a cancer into the Christian heart, 
as it had done for long and cruel centuries. 

The old-new gospel — the renascence of Universal- 
ism, the exhumation of Christ's teaching from the 
grave in which it had been buried — made converts at 
once, and has continued to win adherents in every 
period since ; but its influence in modifying the real 
belief of those whose opinions it has softened and 
improved has far transcended its progress as a dis- 
tinct faith. The old denominations retain their 
written and printed creeds, but their doctrines are 
abandoned by those who still retain the creeds. They 
bear the same relation to their former selves that the 
fossils in a cabinet bear to the living monsters that 
once prowled and preyed in the primeval seas. It 
has alreadj- come to pass that the members of Limi- 
tarian churches think they pay their ministers the 
highest compliment when they exult that these min- 
isters never preach their creeds ; and the\- offer their 
best word for the creed when the}' declare that no 
one is expected to believe it. 

Occasionally, all along, some wise and far-seeing 
man has foreseen and prophesied a better day. Those 
who have adhered to the old creeds have not, per- 
haps, avowed the sentiment of Rev. Dr. Hodge, of 
Princeton, who rejoiced that no new idea had ap- 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 93 

peared in the (Presbyterian) theological school under 
his charge during -the previous fifty years. The 
saving leaven, the hopeful feature in the Protestant 
churches, is the idea of progress. More than two and 
a half centuries ago the key-note was sounded in the 
well-known passage by John Robinson (Puritan), 
when the "Mayflower" left Holland for the New 
World, in an address to the embarking Pilgrims, 
according to Winslow's narrative : — 

"He charged us before God and his blessed angels to follow 
him no further than he followed Christ, and if God should reveal 
anything unto us by any other instrument of his, to be as ready 
to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his minis- 
try ; for he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light 
yet to break forth out of his holy word. . . . Here also he put us 
in mind of our church covenant, at least that part of it whereby 
we promise and covenant with God and one with another to re- 
ceive whatsoever light or truth shall be made known to us from 
his written word ; but withal exhorted us to take heed what 
we received for truth, and well to examine and compare it, and 
weigh it with other scriptures of truth, before we received it ; 
' for,' saith he, ■ it is not possible the Christian world should come 
so lately out of such thick anti-Christian darkness, and that full 
perfection of knowledge should break forth at once.' " 

For many years the doctrines of the Puritans were 
almost everywhere accepted in America ; and long 
after the distinct announcement of Universalism, 
there was a "great gulf fixed" between the new 
faith and the popular, church. But at length a voice 
was here and there lifted up, even among those who 
still retained their connection with the old order, 



94 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

expressive of progress. The rigid features began to 
soften ; the stern doctrines began to relax ; while 
the written or printed creed remained unchanged, 
the actual doctrines preached and believed were 
better. The iceberg still chilled the air, but the gulf 
stream of a better faith was dissolving it. Many 
voices in and out of the pulpit gave testimonj^ that 
the mediaeval horrors were gradually being modified. 
Perhaps the initial step of the modern revival of 
liberal thought was taken by the Episcopal Church 
in England. The Episcopal Articles of Religion 
nowhere state the perpetuity of sin and woe. The 
original number of articles was forty-two instead of 
thirty-nine, but during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
a. d. 1562, they were reduced, and the forty-second 
was repealed. It read as follows : — 

"All men shall not be saved at the length. Thei also are 
worthie of condemnation who indeavour at this time to restore 
the dangerouse opinion that al menne, be thei never so ungodlie, 
shall at length bee saved, when they have suffered pain for their 
sinnes a certain time appointed by God's justice." 

It will be observed that this article concedes that 
universal salvation was once accepted as true, and 
also withdraws both the denial of the doctrine and 
the condemnation of those who accept it. 

The ecclesiastical courts of England have decided 
that there is nothing in the formularies that requires 

" us to condemn as penal the expression of hope by a clergyman 
that even the ultimate pardon of the wicked, who are condemned 
in the day of judgment, may be consonant with the will of God." 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 95 

No small influence in producing the improved tone 
of religious thought on the question of human des- 
tin} r should be ascribed to the scholarly men who 
have written and preached in the Episcopal church, 
particularly in Great Britain. 

The first considerable amelioration of ancient pub- 
lic sentiment was seen w T hen theologians began to 
abandon the idea of literal hell-fire. Wesley said 
there is no other than material fire, and Spnrgeon 
still teaches the same. But with rare exceptions all 
the Partialist denominations regard the " worm," the 
" chains," the "darkness," and the " fire " as em- 
blems of spiritual suffering, remorse. We well re- 
member when, at the age of seven, we returned from 
the Green Street Congregational Sunday-school, 
Boston, then under the charge of Rev. Dr. Jenks, 
telling our parents that there is no fire in hell, but 
that its torments are horrors of conscience, — such 
having been the declaration of the Sunday-school 
teacher in the day's lesson. They were incredulous, 
such an idea then being entirely novel. But now it 
is almost universally accepted by the sects that once 
regarded the abode of the lost as a vast, weltering 
fire-sea, — a literal lake of flame and sulphur, — 

" Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, 
Heaped with the damned like pebbles." 

A wonderful and most agreeable change has come 
over " the spirit of the dream," the nightmare rather, 
of the church. One of its most remarkable changes 



96 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

has been made in the direction of what maybe called 
the expansion of heaven. For long ages hell was 
thought to contain the almost infinite majority of 
mankind, while heaven was to be a little corner, 
with a mere handful of "elected" saints, whose 
chief delight would be to exult throughout eternity 
over their escape from the fate of the rest. The 
Scotch " saint's " observation illustrates the once pre- 
vailing opinion. Said his friend, " In the population 
ofEdinboro [then 30,000] about how man} r , Sandy, do 
you think are elected to final salvation ?" " Weel," 
said he, "I think nae mair nor ma brither Robin 
and mysel' — and I am na quite sure about Robin ! " 
But for a century past the proportions have been 
continually changing. If one could represent the 
former idea by a diagram, he might draw an im- 
mense triangle to represent the lost, side by side 
with an exceedingly minute one to denote the saved. 
But now the classes have exchanged places, and an 
immense triangle continually expanding would de- 
note heaven, in the popular apprehension, and an 
almost invisible and vanishing one — " small by 
degrees and beautifully less " — would represent 
hell. Rev. Dr. Meredith, in Tremont Temple, Bos- 
ton, in 1886, voiced the prevalent sentiment of the 
Partialist church, when he said, — 

" It used to be the common belief that but a very few choice 
sort of folks were going to be saved, while the great multitude 
of the race were going to be damned forever; but I believe that 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 97 

in the great winding up of things the proportion of the lost to 
the saved will be as large as the proportion of men in the State 
Prison is to the population of the State," — 

a sentiment long before uttered by Lyman Beecher. 

In order to get this great number into heaven, 
however, it has become necessary to count in all 
the heathen, and all who die in infancj^. But ** * s a 
fact that the average believer is now satisfied if you 
will only damn a very few for him. 

Among the most conspicuous of those who seem 
to have foreseen and aided in the improvement 
that has blessed Christian thought is the "Beecher 
family." Henry Ward Beecher is popularly sup- 
posed to have originated the mitigation of the 
temperature of modern orthodoxy ; but his father, 
Lyman Beecher (Congregational), really long pre- 
ceded him in the path the more brilliant son followed ; 
while his sister Catharine made the first family-break 
out of the old cerements into the newer life. She sajs, 
in her " Common Sense Applied to Religion " : — 

"I was taught to look at God as a great 'moral Governor' 
whose chief interest was * to sustain his law.' Then there 
seemed to be two kinds of right and wrong, the 'common' and 
the 'evangelical.' According to this distinction, I could not 
feel or do anything that was right or acceptable to God till my 
birth-gift of a depraved heart was renewed by a special divine 
interposition (p. 16)." 

Losing her betrothed, she describes her terrible 
travail of mind until she emerged into the light of a 

broader and serener faith. 

7 



98 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in speaking of the 
death of his sister, Catherine, told the romance of 
her early life. When Miss Beecher was twenty-two 
years old, she was engaged to be married to Profes- 
sor Fisher, of Yale College. Professor Fisher, on 
a voyage to Europe, was drowned, and according to 
Mr. Beecher, this death worked a complete revolution 
In his sister's character. She broke away from the 
faith of her father, and, adopting liberal views, gave 
her whole life for the benefit of others. How often 
has her experience been repeated. How many in 
the day of trial have found a partial and limited 
faith insufficient, and have abandoned it for the 
"eternal hope" of the gospel. 

Dr. Edward Beecher (Congregational), a * ripe 
scholar, and in full fellowship with his church, 
makes the following statements : — 

" In the law of Moses, taken as a law, a rule of life, individual 
and national, there is not one motive derived from a future state 
and its retributions. All is derived from this world and the 
present life. The same also is true of the Patriarchal dispen- 
sation and of the world before the flood." 1 

He thus not only admits that the doctrine of end- 
less punishment was not revealed in the Old Testa- 
ment, but he proceeds to say that Universalism was 
the prevailing sentiment among Christians in the 
early centuries : — 

" What, then, was the state of the facts as to the leading theo- 
logical schools of the Christian world in the age of Origen, and 

l Hist. Script. Ret. p. 4. 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 99 

some centuries after ? It was in brief thus : There were at 
least six theological schools in the church at large ; of these six 
schools, one, and only one, was decidedly and earnestly in favor 
of the doctrine of future eternal punishment. One was in favor 
of the annihilation of the wicked. Two were jn favor of the doc- 
trine of universal restoration on the principles of Origen, and 
two in favor of universal restoration on the principles of Theo- 
dore of Mopsuestia." 1 

And as an historian he affirms that the Puritan doc- 
trines were not invented till more than five hundred 
years after Christ: — 

"The modern Orthodox views of eternal punishment, as op- 
posed to final restoration, were not fully developed and es- 
tablished till the middle of the sixth century, and then they 
were not established by thorough argument, but by imperial 
authority." 2 

The great popular leader who has conducted his 
brethren from Eg} T pt to Canaan is Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher (Congregational). It is impossible to 
quote a tithe of what he has said on this theme, but 
here are a few characteristic utterances. Though 
not a Universalist, but in his last years inclined to 
believe that those who cannot be saved, if anj T , will 
be annihilated, he is as explicit as an}' Universalist 
can be in repudiating false doctrines. He says, — 

11 I believe in a future state of retribution, but I believe it is 
remedial. What the end will be I do not know, for I can't see 
the beginning ; but that punishment will continue after it can 
no longer do good, or that it will be made everlasting, I do not 
believe. God do so to me, and more, if ever I preach that or 

i Hist. Script. Ret. p. 189. 2 Ibid. p. 246. 



100 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

countenance it in any way whatever. For God's own sake, for 
the sake of everything that reason, conscience, and benevolence 
justifies, I would clear God's skirts of every such aspersion. 
Punishment, so long as it continues to do good ; then annihila- 
tion, if you believe it ; but eternal punishment, never ! " 

In December, 1886, he said, — 

" If you tell me that they [sinners] have gone to hell, then I 
swear by the Lord Jesus Christ, whom I have sworn to worship 
forever, that you will make an infidel of me. The doctrine 
that God has been for thousands of years peopling this earth 
with human beings, during a period three-fourths of which was 
not illuminated by an altar or a church, and in places where 
a vast population of those people are } T et without that light, 
is to transform the Almighty into a monster more hideous 
than Satan himself ; and I swear by all that is sacred that I 
will never worship Satan, though he should appear dressed in 
royal robes and seated on the throne of Jehovah. Men may 
say, 'You will not go to heaven.' A heaven presided over by 
such a demon as that, who has been peopling this world with 
millions of human beings and then sweeping them off into hell, 
not like dead flies, but without taking the trouble even to kill 
them, and gloating and laughing over their eternal misery, is 
not such a heaven as I want to go to. The doctrine is too 
horrible. I cannot believe it, and I won't. They say the saints 
in heaven are so happy that they do not mind the torments of 
the damned in hell ; but what sort of saints must they be who 
could be happy while looking down upon the horrors of the 
bottomless pit ? They don't mind — they 're safe ; they 're happy. 
What would the mother think of the sixteen-year daughter who, 
when her infant was lying dead in the house, should come dancing 
and singing into the parlor and exclaim: ' Oh ! I 'm so happy, 
mother, I don't care for the dead baby in the coffin ! ' Would 
she not be shocked ? And so with this doctrine. And by the 
blood of Christ, I denounce it ; by the wounds in His hands 
and His side, I abhor it ; by His groans and agony, I abhor and 
denounce it as the most hideous nightmare of theology." 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 101 

Such sentiments as these were frequently uttered 
b}< Mr. Beecher during his later years, till his death 
in 1887. 

Mrs. H. B. Stowe, still another member of this 
extraordinary family, epitomizes the Universalist 
faith when she says, "Everything that ought to 
happen will happen ! " Her novels are instinct 
with the spirit of the Universalist faith. 

Speaking of the late Henry Ward Beecher, soon 
after his death, the editor of the " Christian Union," 
Dr. Lyman Abbott, says : — 

" My debt to Mr. Beecher is greater than to any other man, 
living or dead, excepting only my father. Like many a son of 
New England I began my Christian life with faith in a God 
who is just, belief in a law which is inexorable, and a submission 
to the primacy of a conscience, absolute but not infallible. From 
Mr. Beecher I learned that God is love, that law is redemption, 
and that love, not conscience, is the soul's primate. Who that 
has learned this lesson can ever forget it, or look with other than 
reverent affection on the teacher from whom he learned it ? 
Mr. Beecher has rendered his generation many a great service, 
— political, moral, social, and theological ; but his greatest 
service is in this, that he has taught the Puritan Church that 
God is love, that law is love, that life is love ; that love is all and 
in all" 

Commenting on this confession, Rev. T. J. Sawyer, 
D. D., says in the " Christian Leader/' — 

" I call this a remarkable confession. Might it not be called 
amazing ? Here is. Dr. Abbott, with the New Testament in his 
hands from his youth up, with the best education New England 
institutions could give him, and yet he never learned that ' God 
is love ' till Mr. Beecher — who was himself rather late in learn- 



102 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

ing this great primal truth of the gospel — taught him ! And 
what makes the case the more remarkable is the fact that in 
New England for more than a century there has been a denomi- 
nation of Christians, not large nor learned, it is true, but re- 
spectable, which, if it had any vocation or has been doing any 
work, has been steadily and sometimes eloquently proclaiming, 
amidst no little obloquy and opposition the very truth which 
Dr. Abbott now holds so important and prizes so high ! And 
where, pray, did Mr. Beecher learn this precious truth ? Not 
under his father's roof, nor from any New England college or 
theological school, nor from * the Puritan Church ; ' and he was 
hardly the man to strike out a new truth of this nature himself. 
With all his wonderful power to use what others had thought 
and done, and to adorn and give life and grace to whatever he 
touched, his mind was not creative ; but it was one of the 
elements of his greatness that he was not altogether ashamed to 
learn from those whom the great church of which he was a 
member, thought it orthodox wisdom to despise. Yet I might 
safely challenge Dr. Abbott to point out a single improvement 
made by Mr. Beecher in the prevalent Orthodoxy of the day, or 
one of its errors and enormities which he rejected, in wdiich 
Universalists did not precede him by half a century. . . . Per- 
haps Progressive Orthodoxy may be one of its fruits, though here, 
as Dr. Dexter wittily said, and Joseph Cook repeated, ' Professor 
Smyth's new light is nothing but John Murray's old darkness.' ' 

One of the most significant signs of the times is 
seen in the condition of things in and around An- 
dover, Mass. The creed of that institution is 
published on page 13. Professor Moses Stuart 
(Congregational) once said, — 

" If a professor has common honest}^, he can never subscribe 
to the creed unless he really believe it. If. he assents to this 
creed and then inculcates principles contrary to it,- he surely is 
not a man who ought to be retained in any important post of 
the church." 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 103 

In 1844, the Visitors in reporting to the Trustees, 
saw occasion to say, — 

"If in the progress of time any officer of this institution 
should adopt and teach opinions and doctrines inconsistent with 
those of the donors, as clearly expressed in their declarations and 
creeds, it would be requiring of him the exercise of the prin- 
ciples of common honesty only that he should resign. Self- 
respect, if no higher principle, it is to be presumed, would 
induce him to do it." 

The " Congregationalist " quotes from an appendix 
of the correspondence which led to the founding of 
the seminary, to the effect that the founders — 

"were strict Calvinists, who would admit of no novel specula- 
tions ; but, as the oldest of them expressed it, * they wished for 
Calvinism up to the hub.' " 

In giving his reasons for resigning his professor- 
ship in Andover, Professor F. H. Thayer (Congre- 
gational) says, — 

" The statutes of the Seminary require a rigid assent to the 
letter of the creed on the part of all persons subscribing it ; the 
Boards of Administration, however, accept a general and ap- 
proximate belief in the doctrines of the creed as the sufficient 
pre-requisite to the subscription. But the honesty of such 
general and approximate subscription has of late been publicly 
and extensively called in question ; yet the trustees are dis- 
inclined publicly to acknowledge and vindicate it. To re- 
main in my office, therefore, would be to remain constantly 
exposed to the charge, or the suspicion, of dishonesty, without 
prospect of open vindication, and with the certainty that 
whatever I might say in my own defence would be largely 
neutralized." 



104 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

And yet the Boston " Congregationalist " says : — 

"In common with all friends of Andover, we greatly regret 
that Professor Thayer should feel obliged to resign, although 
the spirit of his action is most honorable in him." 

In other words, the "Congregationalist" regrets 
that Professor Thayer is an honest man. 

Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth (Congregational) ac- 
cepted a call to an Andover professorship, though 
he did not believe in the declarations of the docu- 
ment he signed ; referring to which Dr. Leonard 
Woolsey Bacon (Congregational) said in the " North 
American Review," — 

"If Dr. Newman Smyth had said after examining the 
Andover creed, ' Before I will write one letter of my name at 
the end of that document, I will see your endowments perish 
with you,' he would have done more for the church of Christ 
in America than by a long lifetime of successful theological 
lecturing." 

Prof. David Swing thus humorously and truthfully 
deals with the Andover attitude. It well illustrates 
the facing-both-ways position of many of those who 
let "I dare not" wait upon " I would " : — 

"The Andover creed says: 'I believe that the wicked will 
awake to shame and everlasting contempt, and with devils be 
plunged into the lake that burnetii with fire and brimstone 
forever and ever.' 'I understand,' said President Seelye, 'that 
when you say eternal hope, you mean everlasting damnation ? ' 
'I do.' 'And when you say disciplinary processes, you mean 
fire and brimstone V 'I do.' 'Well, then, I am compelled to 
say, as a gentleman, that your orthodoxy is sound, but as one 
of the Andover visitors, to say that you are unfit to teach 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 105 

theology, for your flowery language might mislead some of the 
weak-minded boys.' " 

An amusing episode in the onward course of the 
Congregational church is the conduct of Flavius 
Josephus Cook, the Boston " Monday Lecturer. " 
He is struggling hard to maintain ancient Orthodox}', 
and open the door of opportunity a little wider, and 
he makes the astonishing statement that between 
the time when the breath leaves the body and the 
moment when the soul takes its flight, a sinner may 
have an opportunity for repentance, forgiveness, and 
salvation. He prefaces this statement with the in- 
consistent remark, " Give me no guess for a dying 
pillow." And yet his theory is that in the very 
instant of death conscience may be preternaturally 
enlightened, and while the soul is passing from the 
body — it may be after the breath, but before the soul 
has left the body — " the mighty light which comes in 
the last and highest moment of spiritual experience 
before death ends ma}' have been enough to bring 
many a man who gave no visible sign of repentance 
into loyalty to God." 

This might well be called the latest dodge ; Mr. 
Cook is terribly opposed to a second probation, 
but he argues that just at death, between apparent 
and real death, there is a great quickening of the 
spiritual faculties, and at that moment the destiny of 
many a man is decided, and he repents at the last 
gasp. A writer in the " Christian at Work " describes 



106 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

Mr. Cook's theory as that " of the soul playing hide 
and seek in a man's bod}' for an indefinite period 
after he is dead and buried." There seems to be 
about a quarter of a second between Mr. Cook, and 
the average Orthodox theologian. The more these 
tinkers work, the worse the old creed leaks. Once 
it w r as a tolerable porringer, to feed hungry souls 
from, now it is chiefly used as a colander with which 
to strain out gnats. The New Orthodoxy says, 
"Probation after death." Some wit says Mr. Cook 
amends by saying, " Probation after breath." Mr. 
Cook, however, must not claim this subterfuge. 
Pere Ravignan said, many years ago : — 

" What God does for the soul when the eye is turned up in 
death and shrouded, the frame stiffened, every limb motion- 
less, every power of expression gone, is one of the secrets of the 
Divine compassion." 1 

In 1870, according to the Boston " Congrega- 
tionalism" — 

"The Second Congregational Church at Chicopee, Mass., the 
Rev. J. T. Tucker, pastor, adopted the course of retaining its 
old articles of faith in full, with Scripture proofs, etc., while no 
longer using them as a form of admission, nor j^et insisting on 
an unqualified assent to them and all of them, as a condition pre- 
cedent to church-membership. They are retained as showing the 
historical genesis of the church, as testifying its present belief, 
and as furnishing a guide in the examination of its candidates 
for communion. It is quite possible that the event may reveal 
in this expedient a wise and useful remedy for a widely confessed 

i From Dr. Pusey's " What is of Faith. ,, 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 107 

want, — to hold firmly the creed of our fathers as against innova- 
tors, while so holding it as not to exclude sincere doubters on 
points which are not deemed vital to Christian character." 

In harmony with the foregoing the Chicago " Ad- 
vance" (Congregational) says that " the sovereignty 
of the Westminster Catechism " is at an end among 
Congregationalists, but that u the truths which that 
remarkable compend of Christian doctrine embodied 
are still, for the most part, firmly believed." 

This paper, in 1870, found it necessary to assume, 
contrary to the ' ' standards " which it says are 
" firmly believed," that all infants will be saved. 
Only thus could it make out a happy immortality for 
the majority of mankind. This is its language : — 

" Our readers will not doubt the salvation of those who die in 
infancy and early childhood. But in granting this, the salva- 
tion of the majority of the human race is at once conceded ; for 
more than half of all who are horn die thus prematurely, — a 
fact which lightens greatly the darkness of the past, and espe- 
cially of the heathen world, where infant life so commonly goes 
to waste. 

"The Bible takes no gloomy view of the human race as such. 
As a race it will be saved! The lost will be the exception and 
not the rule. Dr. SchafF well remarks, in his additions to Lange 
on Romans, that ' from the great stress which Paul lays on the 
superabundance of grace, which greatly exceeds the evils of the 
fall, we have a right to infer that by far the greater part of the 
race will ultimately be saved.' And Dr. Hodge, the personifi- 
cation of Puritan theology, than whom no one will be considered 
more orthodox, in his commentary on the same epistle, uses this 
emphatic language : * We have reasons to believe that the lost 
shall bear to the saved no greater proportion than the inmates 



108 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

of a prison do to the mass of the community.' Such is our own 
faith, and we cannot consent to belie Scripture, to dim the glory 
of the Redeemer, or to play into the hands of adversaries who 
delight to malign Orthodoxy, by teaching that the great mass of 
mankind, for whom Christ died, will forever perish. The prison 
convicts shall not out-number the holy, nor the census of hell 
exceed that of heaven ! " 

Illustrative of the Congregational tendency, says a 
correspondent of the " New York Independent " : — 

"It is becoming more and more impossible to hold the en- 
lightened Christian public to those views of future misery end- 
lessly perpetuated which formerly obtained, which our fathers 
brought with them out of the Papal Church, and which are still 
found in the creeds of both Papal and Protestant churches alike. 
And yet those who honestly accept the testimony of the Scrip- 
tures cannot accept the doctrine of the final salvation of all men, 
and to many there seems to be no middle ground. This doctrine 
of immortality in sin and misery is discarded by an increasing 
number of our Christian brethren on the other side of the Atlan- 
tic, and that of a belief in the conditional immortality of man 
has taken its place : and some of the most eminent English 
preachers, well known and honored in this country, are of this 
way of thinking. In this country, too, a spirit of inquiry has 
been awakened among thinking men that cannot longer be 
suppressed." 

But to one who would "deal" with such of the 
brethren as indulge the larger hope, the same paper 
said, in 1878 : — 

" We can tell it that, if it must enter on this crusade, it will 
find a very large portion of the ministry arrayed against it. We 
can tell it that not a few of the noblest men in the pastorate and 
among the presidents and professors of our colleges and theolog- 
ical seminaries will refuse to follow it in this war against the 
brethren." 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 109 

The Boston " Congregationalist" undertook on a 
time to ascertain the views of leading ministers, and 
received the following among the replies : — 

"I know of no Congregational church in which oar doctrine 
as anciently interpreted, concerning the state of unforgiven 
sinners after death, is not largely modified so as to accommo- 
date it more nearly to human feeling, — not in the published 
church creed so much, hut in the private thinking of the mem- 
bers, and in the examination of candidates for admission to 
the church." 

"There has been in late years a noticeable departure from 
the former faith on the part of our ministers. Without inclin- 
ing, so far as I am aware, to Restorationism, many of them do 
not accept the endlessness of future punishment. Some favor 
the doctrine of the ultimate extinction of the wicked, and others 
leave the question open. There is a quiet dissent from the old 
teachings in my own church, and in other churches." 

" If a preacher is Christlike, and shows in his life the fruits 
of the Spirit, if he give good evidence of thorough piety, I would 
not exclude him from our ministry if he believes in thejannihila- 
tion of the wicked, or the ultimate restoration of all." 

"There is also manifestly a feeling that if it should appear 
in the hereafter that God can by any means, not now revealed, 
save those who die in unbelief, it will be an occasion of great 

joy." 

"The whole system of theology is undergoing modification of 
statement and of thought ; and this doctrine of Future Punish- 
ment in the new adjustment does not hold just the place it did 
in the old system." 

"There has certainly been a change in the views of the mem- 
bers of our churches upon the doctrine in question. Less rela- 
tive prominence is given it than formerly. Where positively 
held, it is asserted with a different tone, showing that it is held 
as an awful and inscrutable mystery." 

"There are many restorationists, some annihilatiomsts, many 
doubtful and confused." 



110 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

"If Dr. Dale (Annihilationist), or George MacDonald (Ees- 
torationist), or Christlieb (who leaves this as an open ques- 
tion), knocked at the doors, my church would welcome them 
to membership, and ordain them to the ministry. Belief in- 
eternal damnation is not enough to make a good minister, nor 
peculiar views about it enough to spoil one." 

In the installation of Rev. Dr. Whiton in Newark, 
N. J., the candidate declared that — 

" 'propitiation * is heathenish ; that God's relations and feelings 
toward the sinner are not affected by the atonement, but only 
the sinner's relation toward God ; and that ultimately all beings 
would be reconciled to God, and there would no longer be sin or 
rebellion in the universe." 

The " Christian Union " thinks that the whole sig- 
nificance of the Newark Council is briefly this : that 
the Congregationalists of Eastern New Jersey do not 
think that a modest uncertainty respecting the future 
state, on the part of a religious teacher whose Chris- 
tian piety and scholarship are unquestioned, consti- 
tutes any reason for refusing him the right hand of 
fellowship in his Christian work, or any ground for 
advising the church not to accept him as its teacher. 
Dr. Whiton was installed. His triumph over the 
opposition against him demonstrates that the dogmas 
of Probation and of Endless Punishment no longer 
hold a vital place in the creed of Orthodox Congre- 
gationalism. Thej r are indeed in the creed, but they 
are not essential to it. 

Prominent among the leaders of u New Ortho- 
doxy" are Drs. Whiton, Northrup, Gladden, Hunger, 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. Ill 

Xewman and Egbert Smyth, and Merriam in this 
country, — allCongregationalists, — and George Mac- 
Donald (Episcopal), in England. We have quoted 
Dr. Whiton, and briefly cite some of the others. 
Mr. Merriam, in a letter to the " National Baptist," 
Philadelphia, said : — 

"I believe the oft-quoted 'proof-texts,' on the subject of 
everlasting punishment are inconclusive. They certainly teach a 
future punishment, and appeal to the fear of it. But it seems 
to me the whole logic and spirit of Biblical truth forbid the idea 
that all who die impenitent will suffer an eternity of conscious 
misery. I believe the Bible would teach us that God's charac- 
ter is always patient, compassionate, and, toward the repentant, 
forgiving. Of course I believe in an extent of punishment com- 
mensurate with the duration of sin." 

Rev. T. T. Munger, D. D. : — 

" I would rather, with Tennyson, ' trust the larger hope ' that 
in some way 'good shall be the final goal of ill ' than prescribe 
how it shall be reached. The annihilation of the wicked strikes 
me as an error of the gravest character — impugning as it does 
the fact of human immortalitj 7 . The theory of final, universal 
restoration does not seem to me necessarily to conflict with a 
thorough and sincere enforcement of the gospel ; but the theory 
of annihilation so cuts under the whole philosophy of man and 
the gospel, that I cannot conceive how it can be held without 
fatally weakening the entire system. ... To deny that God 
would receive a penitent from whatever depths of hell he might 
look up would simply be to lose my God. I utterly reject the 
opinion that the great masses of mankind are subjected to end- 
less pains in the future world. I have no belief in inflicted 
punishment, save as it comes through the laws inherent in our 
nature and conduct. I feel no hesitation in saying that if at any 



112 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

time, in any world, a sinner turn to God, God will have mercy 
upon him. I do not believe in the exhaustion of infinite mercy, 
— a mercy that endure th forever." 

The " Christian Union" contained an account 
of the installation of Dr. Munger over a Congrega- 
tional church at New Haven, by a vote of twenty- 
four to six, after a protracted examination, and. 
said editorially : — 

"On what grounds the dissenting votes were cast, we are not 
told; probably on the ground of Mr. Munger's views respecting 
future punishment, expressed in the declaration that judgment 
is a continuous process, is merciful, not doom-like, being a 
gracious separation between good and evil, and that heaven is 
oneness with God, and that hell is separation from God. In 
reply to the question, * Do you believe that all men will ulti- 
mately be saved?' he replied, 'I pray so, and I hope so;' but 
to a second question he added, ' 1 certainly do not hold out any 
hopes to a man that his future life will be different from what 
his life on earth leads us to expect that it will be. " 

Mr. Munger praj^s for the ultimate salvation of all, 
and places himself on record as hoping for it. This 
is as far as the New Theology will go. And a Con- 
gregational council decides that this hope, cherished 
in accordance with prayer, is no bar to its fellowship, 
and installs a pastor who entertains this hope. If 
Mr. Munger cannot pray in faith for the salvation 
of all, he is permitted to pray in hope, and both 
praj-er and hope to this end are endorsed as legiti- 
mate in a Congregational pastor 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 113 

Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden, in 1879, said : — 

"No man is 'evangelical,' say these American censors, who 
doubts the endlessness of future punishment, — no matter how 
much else he may believe. But the English Congregationalists 
with one voice declare that to deny the name * evangelical' to a 
man simply because he does not believe this dogma, is absurd. 
The Rev. Dr. Kennedy, of London, one of the most scholarly 
and conservative of the English Congregationalists, recently 
published a long article in the ' Congregationalist,' in which he 
showed that a large share of the English Congregational minis- 
ters, and the ablest among them, do reject, without hesitation, the 
doctrine of endless 'punishment. Some of them believe in the 
final extinction of the wicked; others hold Canon Farrar's doc- 
trine of ' eternal hope.' " 

Occasionally a belated theologian has not dis- 
covered the nineteenth century. Such a man seems 
to be the Rev. Dr. W. T. Shedd (Presbyterian), who 
said as lately as 1883 : — 

" I certainly teach that infants 'are unholy, sinful, and mor- 
ally unclean,' but I do not teach that ' there is no warrant in 
the Scripture for believing that such children can be saved.' On 
the contrary, I quote Scripture to prove these two positions: (1) 
That there is an explicit assertion in the Divine Word that all 
infants of believers are saved by the washing of regeneration ; (2) 
That there is reason from the Divine Word for both hoping and 
believing that all other infants are saved by the same method, 
although the texts are not so explicit." 

When, in 1887, the year of the famous letters from 
Orthodox clergymen as to the status of "evangelical" 
doctrines among ministers and churches, Washing- 
ton Gladden predicted that within twenty --five years 
Congregationalists would be substantially Universal- 

3 



114 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

ists, the " Congregationalist " took on dreadfully, 
saying : — 

. " It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest, and if the fact were 
so, one might have hoped that a loyal son would tenderly cover, 
rather than rudely unveil, the nakedness of his fathers." 

George MacDonald, then a Congregationalist, now 
of the Episcopal church, in " Annals of a Quiet 
Neighborhood," harmonizes with Whittier's words, 
;i Could heaven itself be heaven, and look unmoved 
on hell ? " He says : — 

" When once to a man the human face is the human face di- 
vine, and the hand of his neighbor is the hand of a brother, then 
will he understand what Saint Paul meant when he said, ' I 
could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my 
brethren.' . . . Saint Paul would be wretched before the throne 
of God if he thought there was one man beyond the pale of his 
mercy ; and that as much for God's glory as for man's sake. 
And what shall we say of the man Christ Jesus ? Who that loves 
his brother w r ould not, upheld by the love of Christ, and with a 
dim hope that in the far-off time there might be some help for 
him, arise from the company of tbe blessed, and walk down into 
the dismal regions of despair, to sit with the last, the only unre- 
deemed, the Judas of his race, and be himself more blessed in the 
pains of hell than in the glories of heaven ? Who in the midst 
of the golden harps and white wings, knowing that one of his 
kind, one miserable brother in the old-world time when men were 
taught to love their neighbor as themselves, was howling unheeded 
far below in the vaults of the creation, — who, I say, would not 
feel that he must arise, that he had no choice, that awful as it 
was, he must gird his loins, and go down into the smoke 
and the darkness and the fire, travelling the weary and fearful 
road into the country to find his brother ? — who, I mean, that 
had the mind of Christ, that had the love of the Father ? " 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 115 

It will be seen bv the foregoing extracts that the 
Congregationalists have risen immensely above the 
Puritan horrors of Saybrook and Andover. Proceed 
step by step from older to newer of the organized 
churches of this sect, and there is steady progress 
from darkness to light. The creed of each new 
church is less savage than the one framed the 3'ear 
before ; and in any cit}' in the land where there are 
two Congregational churches it is usually found that 
the later is not onlv the more liberal, but also the 
more popular. It would not be difficult to gauge 
the age of any Congregational church by the creed 
it professes ; the younger it is, the nearer it has ap- 
proached to our platform. In the geology of theology, 
the monsters are found in the oldest strata. The 
nearer we come to our own epoch, the more religious 
opinions resemble our own. 

President Gregory in a recent baccalaureate ser- 
mon said, according to the " Homiletic Monthly" : — 

" Paley defines virtue as doing good in obedience to the will 
of God for the sake of everlasting happiness. As organized by 
Paley, and connected so closely with our modern Christianity, 
it is the scheme of everlasting selfishness and hypocrisy that 
has cursed Christendom for a century." 

Bishop Foster (Methodist), after giving the sta- 
tistics of paganism, remarks, — 

" If the awful thought could once take possession of my mind 
that the whole heathen world must, of necessity, be lost forever, 
simply because they are heathen, I would not send them a gospel 



116 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

which reveals such a God. That grim thought alone would 
shut out all hope for the world, and make eternity itself a 
dungeon, no difference who might be saved. For how could 
any rational creature enjoy heaven with a God whose government 
could permit such a stain of shame and dishonor, of cruelty and 
injustice ? " 

The " Christian Union," in December, 1877, ad- 
mitted that the doctrine that — 

" * The wicked are cast into eternal torments' is no longer 
preached by any Orthodox ministers of note, and would hardly 
be listened to by any Orthodox congregation. No minister of 
to-day probably could bring himself to preach Jonathan Edwards's 
sermon, 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,' and certainly 
no church of to-day could bring itself to hear it. Mr. Moody 
may be regarded as a not excessively progressive preacher of the 
Orthodox faith, and his one sermon on future punishment, on 
'Son, remember,' contains no hint of any other torment than 
that which memory inflicts upon the soul that has lost its 
opportunity. Joseph Cook is a fair representative of modern 
Orthodoxy, and there is no smell of brimstone in his argument 
for future penalty, — a penalty purely self-inflicted. The vision 
of an eternal inquisition, presided over by an omnipotent Tor- 
quemada, no longer haunts the Christian pulpit." 

Dr. Fairbairn (Presbyterian), in his " Studies of 
the Life of Christ," remarks : — 

" Judas despairful is a better man than Judas respectable had 
been ; and if his remorse has touched the heart of man into pity, 
who shall say that it found or made severe and pitiless the heart 
of God?" 

Remembering the warm-hearted men and women 
of the Methodist Church, we are not surprised to 
find Dr. Whedon, of the Methodist "Quarterly," 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 117 

saying that there is a class of loving, pure-hearted 
Christians, "in other respects orthodox, to whom 
such a retribution [a ' hell of inexpressible torment '] 
is utterly unthinkable ; " and that this class is steadily 
increasing, and beginning to speak out boldly, and 
make itself felt in all that pertains to creeds and the 
conditions of Christian fellowship. It w T ould seem, 
even from the revelations of the last few months, as 
if the time was near, prophesied j-ears ago b}' an 
eminent divine, when there would be a " great land- 
slide into Universalism." 

Notwithstanding its brave professions of remain- 
ing unmoved, it is true, even of that rigid commun- 
ion the Baptist, as Galileo said it was of the earth, 
E pur si muove, — "it does move for all that ; " and 
if its leaders continue to hold the old doctrines 
without proclaiming them, except semi-occasionally, 
the motive will ere long be most apparent. 

In February, 1881, the Chicago " Standard" 
(Baptist) defined its idea of God's fatherhood thus, 
— and its definition is accurate : — 

" The clearest explanation of God's paternal relation to the 
world as obdurate and as redeemed is to be gained by a perusal 
of the parable of the Prodigal Son. That erring youth was far 
from the enjoyment of filial blessings in his far country, but he 
was a son in a true sense still, both in the eye of the waiting 
father and deep down in the hearty convictions of the young 
man himself." 

This is a great improvement on the position of 
the " Standard,'' that God is not the Father of all 



118 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

men, or of any, until the}' are spiritually re- 
generated. (See p. 86.) 

In the kindness of its heart the ci Standard" denies 
the allegation sometimes made, that Universalism is 
pleasing to the unregenerate. It said in February, 
1870: — 

" To men who have become involved in the toils of sin, who 
have felt its power and its bondage, there is very little inspiring 
in the creed which only tantalizes them with the reflection that 
' holiness and happiness are inseparably connected/ and finds 
for them no way of escape in this life. The only prospect held 
out is that God will * finally restore the whole human family to 
holiness and happiness ; ' but now and for an indefinite time in 
the future those sold unto sin must continue in its bondage." 

But while this body of Christian believers still 
affects to hold the old ideas, it escapes being an 
entire anachronism in this age by not preaching 
them ! This is our inference from the subjoined 
paragraph from the Chicago " Standard " : — 

" The testimony of our own experience and observation is 
that there is no doctrinal subject upon which ministers preach 
so seldom as this, and none so infrequently discussed by the 
religious press, — at least the Orthodox press." 

Just before these pages were put to press Mr. 
Spurgeon withdrew from the Baptist Union because 
his brethren were so generally drifting — rising, 
rather — to better views of God and human destiny. 
And still later, in 1888, Rev. Henry C. Graves, 
of New Bedford, Mass., quotes the opinion of *-a 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 119 

clergyman of acknowledged authority on religious 
tendencies in England/' that a majoritY* of the min- 
isters among the c; Independents " or Congregation- 
alists of England " hold to the theory of the final 
restoration of those who may be punished in the 
future life. In a word, universal salvation is the 
destiny of the human race." 

In 1878, Rev. C. H. Richards (Congregational), 
of Madison, Wisconsin, said, — 

"My church believes in inevitable retribution for sin, and 
that the everlastingly incorrigible will suffer everlastingly. But 
it * looks for more light to break forth from God's Word' upon 
this law of retribution. It knows the best Christian scholars 
differ about the meaning of important texts, and wants them 
simply to discover the real truth of Scripture. It would not 
stultify itself by demanding in advance that they arrive at its 
present conclusions, or be turned out of its fellowship. If 
Dr. Dale (Annihilationist), or George MacDonald ( Restoration - 
ist), or Christlieb (who leaves this an open question) knocked 
at its doors, it would welcome them to membership, and ordain 
them to the ministry. Belief in eternal damnation is not enough 
to make a good minister, nor peculiar views about it enough to 
spoil one. Other elements should be decisive. If the candidate 
be clearly a ' man of God ' by character, fitness, power to help 
men heavenward, clearly ' called of the Lord ' to preach, no 
council should withhold its hands. If his spiritual life and 
spiritual success show that God wants him in the work, it is a 
sin against the 'Holy Ghost' to prevent him. No gag- law is 
needed in the kingdom of heaven. There is no more danger 
from errors on this point than from the Plymouth Brethrenism 
of Moody, or the fatalism of Hodge. Congregationalism will 
not suffer half so much from * inconsistency ' as from silencing 
a true prophet of God." 



120 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

Professor J. L. Diman, of Brown University, " Or- 
thodox Congregationalism" in a sermon at King's 
Chapel, Boston, in 1878, is reported : — 

" I affirm that there is no warrant whatever for erecting the 
bald, literal dogma of everlasting punishment into an article of 
the Christian faith ; that a grievous wrong is done when any 
who shrink from accepting it are excluded from the communion 
of Christian people ; and that the religious body which insists 
on this as an essential test will inevitably bar from its ministry 
many of the most faithful and the most conscientious of the 
present generation. Those who affirm it affirm what Jesus him- 
self made no part of his direct and explicit teaching ; and where 
he was silent we well may pause." 

The " New York Sun " pronounces the controversy 
on human destiny " the live theological issue of the 
hour; " and is amazed to find that so many " who 
were but lately among the pillars of Orthodox}', have 
turned against the ancient creed of damnation." It 
further says that "the investigations recently made 
by a religious paper show that notions heretofore 
considered heretical respecting eternal torment are 
tolerated among the clergy of the Congregational 
denomination." 
. The " New York Herald" says editorially : — 

' 'The idea of eternal punishment for sins committed in a 
limited period of time is to very many thinking persons illogical 
and abhorrent, and various devices have been found for getting 
around it, if not of utterly ignoring it. It is very evident that 
Universalism is spreading itself very slowly but very surely 
among all the denominations. It is also very clear that the 
time is coming when the creeds of Christendom must be revised 
in this particular." 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 121 

And to the astonishment of the theological and 
literary conservatives, even the stately and dignified 
" North American Review" lately entered upon the 
discussion, giving six exhaustive articles on the 
question, by as many eminent divines, including the 
presentation of the Universalist argument by Rev. 
Dr. T. J. Sawyer. 

Commenting on these investigations and disclo- 
sures, the " Herald and Presbyter," says, — 

" It is manifest to all close observers that a change has been 
gradually occurring for a number of years past, chiefly in the 
views of Congregationalists, though not confined to them, in 
regard to the duration of future punishment for the finally 
impenitent." 

The " New York Sun," says, — 

"The truth is, Universalism is becoming apart of Orthodoxy ; 
and when Orthodox ministers join in the exercises at Dr. Chapin's 
funeral they will not need to indulge in apolog}' for their conduct. 
So far as concerns the doctrine which nominally separated the 
dead clergyman and orator from them, they are in substantial 
agreement with his views. They have given up hell as it was 
formerly preached, and their churches are filled with Univer- 
salists." 

Rev. Dr. Pond, of Bangor. Me. (Congregational), 
wrote to the " Advance," in 1880 : — 

"I regret to notice a disposition in some places to fraternize 
with Universalists. Some advocate an exchange of pulpits with 
them, receiving them to our churches, and their being licensed 
and even ordained to the ministry. Some indulge in modifica- 
tions and explanations which go to diminish the difference 



122 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

between these two classes of Christians, and bring them nearer 
together. This is a new phase in our religious history, introduced 
probably from Germany ; for the eternity of future punishment 
is commonly denied there, and is held very loosely even by 
evangelical Christians." 

Rev. Dr. Chapin once told a Chaiiestown audi- 
ence that " the doctrine of eternal punishment, as 
preached by Joseph Cook, bears about the same 
relation to the old Orthodox doctrine as does the 
domestic cat to the aboriginal tiger." And vet, 
though the old ship " Orthodoxy" has drifted so far 
from its ancient harbor, it has not yet found the new. 
It has no chart, rudder, or port of destination. It is 
forever beating around Cape Point-no-point. When 
the Boston Platform was adopted by the Congrega- 
tionalists, — which, as the result showed, had no bind- 
ing force, — Professor Park of Andover said : — 

"It is altogether too indecisive with regard to those great 
truths which the historic creeds of the Congregationalists have 
been designed to maintain. I cannot regard the spirit of the 
new creed as adapted to meet the needs of the present age. It 
seems to portend a decline in doctrinal preaching and in mis- 
sionary zeal. In my opinion, the general acceptance of the 
creed as a denominational standard would be a calamity." 

But in 1879 Rev. Dr. Bacon (Congregational) 
wrote to the " Independent" as to what the denom- 
ination needs. He showed very decidedly that this 
incohesive aggregation of independent churches is 
fast following the Unitarians en route to dissolution. 
He remarks : — 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 123 

"The Cambridge Platform of 1646 began to be obsolete before 
the men who made it were in their graves. Nobody recognizes 
it as a constitution or a body of rules for any organization. Yet 
the authority, feeble as it may be, of that old document, is not 
less — is, perhaps, greater — to-day than the authority of the 
Boston Platform of 1865. Doubtless that also, being nearly 
fourteen years of age, is beginning to be obsolete without begin- 
ning to be venerable. Its authors tell us expressly ' that the 
National Council at Boston had no legislative power to ordain a 
new constitution for the churches, or to promulgate any new 
rules, and no judicial power to establish precedents which in- 
ferior courts must follow.' They tell us, ' All that such a 
council can do is to inquire, to deliberate, and to testify.' No 
church, then, is bound to be governed by either of those plat- 
forms, or by both of them. No church can be disowned for dis- 
regarding them." 

The frequent expressions of opinion on the part of 
Congregational clergymen show pretty conclusively 
that this body resembles the quack's description of 
his medicine. He said it was a i 4 heterogeneous con- 
glomeration of discordant materials." 

In a lecture to the theological students of Andover 
Seminary, Professor G. T. Ladd (Congregational) 
thus explained Congregationalism : — 

" It is hard to define; a concrete, clear-cut definition is likely 
to be too narrow; we must study its germinant ideas and funda- 
mental principles. Again, what will Congregationalism turn out 
to be ? What will come by development ? Here again we must 
study its germinant principles, in order to separate its accidental 
from its necessary elements. We must analyze it into its con- 
stituent principles, and then apply these to the many important 
questions which will present themselves." 



124 THE LEA VEX AT WORK. 

The Chicago " Advance " is a little more explicit 
in being inexplicit. In 1879 it said : — 

" The ' Savoy Confession,' whatever its ' historical ' value, for 
'substance of doctrine,' is not any fitting symbol or expression 
of the now existing Congregational belief and mode of statement. 
Any pretence that it is is not ingenuous, nor is the perpetuation 
of such a quasi-claim ' profitable either for doctrine or instruc- 
tion in righteousness.' Probably few, if any, of our churches 
have in their Confessions of Faith adopted without modification 
any of the old creed statements." 

In 1880 the author of this book made a most 
strenuous endeavor bj T correspondence and personal 
application, in Chicago and elsewhere, to obtain an 
authoritative answer to the question, What is Con- 
gregationalism ? No one of that church to whom he 
applied could answer the question. In June, of that 
year, Rev. H. M. Case, of Oneida, 111., detailed his 
troubles in the " Advance." " Born and bred a Con- 
gregationalist," he says, " I have from a child been 
at a loss to know what were its doctrines." He tried 
his own hand at making a creed, but never found the 
Congregationalist who could tell him if he had hit the 
nail on the head. He gathered everything he could 
hear of, but was further than ever from the point. 
He wrote to the Boston headquarters, and received 
this reply: "We have nothing that you mention. 
Those old creeds are out of print, and cannot be 
had at any price. We send the ' Boston Platform,' 
and have forwarded an order to Philadelphia for the 
' Westminster Catechism, ' which will be sent you 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 125 

from there." On receiving and reading the " Boston 
Platform " he writes : ; ' My perusal of the ' Boston 
Platform ' only increased the aforesaid mental de- 
spondency and irritation, for it was bat another 
treatise on the wearisome and endless matter of 
polity." 

He then wrote to a great professor in a leading 
theological seminary, who answered : u I have asked 
the members of our faculty to aid me in finding the 
creeds for which you are searching ; " and meanwhile 
the facult}' had unearthed a book entitled, " Congre- 
gational Order, The Ancient Platform of the Con- 
gregational Churches of New England, with a 
Digest of the Rules and Usages in Connecticut," and 
the professor wrote : " We shall be glad to open our 
librarv to you to consult this volume or an v others." 

Mr. Case thus chronicles his last experience in his 
search : — 

" Meanwhile I found at the post-office the other da3 T two large 
and weighty packages, carefully wrapped and securely tied. I 
carried them to my study, eagerly cut the string and removed 
the wrapping, when lo! there lay on my carpet six beautiful 
volumes bound in leather, whose titlepages are identical and 
read thus: * The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America, Containing the Confession of Faith, 
the Catechism, and the Directory for the Worship of God, to- 
gether with the Plan of Government and Discipline, as ratified 
by the General Assembly at their sessions in May, 1821, and 
amended in 1833.' " 

" I am still seeking, though with daily diminishing hopeful- 
ness, to know what an honest Congregationalist is expected to 
believe * for substance of doctrine.' " 



126 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

And the editor of the " Advance " confesses : — 

" Account for it as each one may, the fact remains that as 
Congregational churches we have no generally acceptable popu- 
lar outline of doctrinal instruction. " 

Every change in the views of Congregationalists 
is toward Universalist sentiments, notwithstanding 
the frantic efforts of some of their leading theo- 
logians to avoid our conclusions ; and their constant 
approach toward a broader faith is a confession of 
judgment to the assimilating power of our form 
of doctrine. 

During a year's residence in Great Britain, the 
author of this volume ascertained that the pulpits 
of that country had largely abandoned preaching 
endless punishment, multitudes of them openly re- 
pudiating it. This is true of most Episcopal and 
Congregational, and many Wesleyan churches. 
Even the Presbyterian pulpits are in many in- 
stances extinct volcanoes, and some of them avow 
the larger hope in everything but name. Principal 
Caird, Fergus Ferguson, Dr. Joseph Leckie, Dr. 
Walter C. Smith, and others, avow principles that 
will one clay lead their church to the true fold. 
Says the "Christian World" (Orthodox), Oct. 30, 
1886: — 

" Quite a number of Wesleyan correspondents assure us that, 
however some of their ministers may preach * eternal misery,' 
the old doctrine is only very partially preached, and scarcely 
ever in the bald, harsh form which people could bear in days of 
cruelty. Nearly all our correspondents rejoice that this is so." 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 127 

And think of the fate of a Presbyterian pastor who 
should have published these lines fifty }~ears ago. 
They were written by Rev. Walter C. Smith, D. D., 
of Edinburgh, United Presbyterian. 

" There came a soul to the gate of heaven, 
Gliding slow, — 
A soul that was ransomed and forgiven, 

And white as snow, — 
And the angels all were silent. 



" 'But I may not enter there,' she said, 
* For I must go 
Across the gulf, where the guilty dead, 

Lie in their woe: ' 
And the angels all were silent. 



" ' I had a brother, and also another 

Whom I loved well ; 
What if, in anguish, they curse each other 

In depths of hell ? * 
And the angels all were silent. 

" 'How love the loved who are sorrowing, 
And yet be glad? 
How sing the songs ye are fain to sing, 

W 7 hile I am sad?' 
And the angels all were silent. 

" ■ Should I be liker Christ, were I 

To love no more 
The loved, who in their anguish lie 

Outside the door ? ' 
And the angels all were silent. 



128 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

" The Lord himself stood by the gate, 

And heard her speak 

Those tender words, compassionate, 

Gentle and meek: 
And the angels all were silent. 

' ' And he said, * Now will I go with you, 

Dear child of love, 

I am weary of all this glory too, 

In heaven above ; ' 

And the angels all were silent. 

* ' ' We will go seek and save the lost, 

If they will hear, 
They who are worst but need me most, 

And all are dear.' 
And the angels all were silent." 

Surety the world has progressed when such a poem 
can be published by a Scotch Presbyterian clergy- 
man in Edinburgh, and not taint his reputation for 
Orthodoxy, nor impair his influence. 

The author personally sent a large number of Uni- 
versalist volumes to clergymen and theological pro- 
fessors in different parts of Scotland, in 1886-7, and 
the unexpected liberality of the recipients in their 
letters of acknowledgment was a source of great 
gratification, and illustrates the leading thought of 
this book. They wrote in acknowledging the receipt 
of the books such sentences as these : — 

" With whose arguments and conclusions I have a hearty con- 
currence." " The whole subject of the future life is being looked 
at from a different standpoint than formerly, even in Orthodox- 



THE THEOLOGICAL TREND. 129 

Calvinistic Scotland. " " The controversy about the word 
['everlasting'] has been some time ended for the thoughtful." 
" The one answer to the question of eternal punishment will be 
found in the fact that it would be out of proportion to finite trans- 
gression." " You seem to me to prove your point conclusively." 
" How much is there implied in that word of the Master, 'I 
have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
now.' ' " We have only, I think, to agree as to what God is, to 
be obliged, by the purest necessities of thought, ultimately to 
agree as to all the rest." [Of Thayer's Theology] "My conclu- 
sions are in harmony with its main contention." " It will require 
a tremendous upheaval before even the ground lines in theology 
are laid as they ought to be. We want, in my opinion, purely 
scientific and philosophic thought brought into the whole 



An entire volume might be filled with extracts 
from those identified with the principal denomina- 
tions, expressive of the advancing and broadening 
sentiments of the churches. Those given in this 
volume are only a few of the large number that have 
accumulated on the hands of the author, and will 
serve as specimens of the general drift of thought, 
straws on the current of religions opinion. They are 
full of encouragement to those who cherish the faith 
once " everywhere spoken against," and point to the 
time when on the question of human destiny there 
shall be but one opinion, — that all the families 
of earth shall ultimately become "one family in 
heaven." 



CHAPTER IX. 

MORE EXPLICIT CONCESSIONS. 

TT will be interesting to present in this place some 
of the remarkable concessions of our Partialist 
brethren. The Chicago " Advance " said as lately 
as 1883: — 

" We have an idea out this way that, if we can eliminate from 
our creeds the horrible doctrines which have come in from the 
Middle Ages, such as infant damnation, and indeed the damna- 
tion of almost all the race, according to the decrees of God, — that 
if we can only rid the church of some of these ancient and hoary 
heresies, we shall he in less danger of the new ; for the new is a 
direct product of the old." 

The New York "Evangelist" confesses : — 

"We have sincere sympathy with much of the inquiry and 
discussion now current respecting the theologies of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, with reference to their adapta- 
tion to the thoughts and needs of our time. We believe that it 
will be found to be a bootless task to attempt to bind the nine- 
teenth and twentieth centuries in perpetual bondage to antique 
forms of thought and antiquated modes of stating divine truth. 
And so far as any new theology may arise, that will be in more 
obvious harmony with the spiritual demands of this inquiring, 
restless age ; so far as the theological thought of our time is en- 
deavoring to attest the essential verities of grace in such struc- 



MORE EXPLICIT CONCESSIONS. 131 

ture and language that the popular mind can better understand 
and appreciate them, — we look upon it with favor, and pledge 
to it our support." 

The New York " Church Union " : — 

"The Andover system, with its divine imperialism, govern- 
mental theory of the atonement, plenary ability of the will, and 
doctrine of sin and holiness, will take its place in the history of 
private speculations. An effort to prevent its fossilization is the 
real meaning of 'the Andover matter.' But it will go. Not 
even Mr. Joseph Cook can save it." 

A daring clergyman of the Presbyterian Church 
sends a letter to the "New York Evangelist," in 
which he frankly announces his opinion that " our 
[their] Confession of Faith should be re-written or 
else we should have a new document which, prepared 
on a similar plan, shall be an explanation of our 
faith." He reiterates what Universalist journals 
have asserted for a half-centwy past, that some of 
the " statements in the Confession are repugnant to 
reason and to the word of God." The sooner the 
Presbyterian Church reaches this conclusion unani- 
mously, the better for the world in general, and for 
the Presbyterian Church in particular. 

The "Advance" remarks that Dr. Hodge has 
said : — 

"To adopt every proposition contained in the Westminster 
Confession and Catechisms is more than the vast majority of our 
ministers either do or can do. To make them profess to do it 
is a great sin. It hurts their conscience. It fosters a spirit of 
evasion and subterfuge." 



132 THE LEAVEN AT WORK, 

Why not, man-fashion, repudiate a creed thus dis- 
ingenuously retained ? 

The " Christian Union " remarks : — 

" The Presbyterian Church, as a church, requires no intellec- 
tual beliefs or opinions as a condition of lay membership. It 
requires acceptance of the Westminster Confession of Faith by 
its clergy and elders, but not by its laymen. Many Presbyte- 
rian churches have a shorter creed which candidates publicly 
accept; but many act on the principle announced by Dr. Hodge 
before the Evangelical Alliance, that no church has a right to 
make any conditions of admission to its fellowship which the 
New Testament has not declared to be conditions of admission 
to heaven." 

This seems to be the modern Presbyterian policy ; 
the preachers must say they retain the old faith, but 
the people may accept or reject. Who would have 
believed that Professor Patton, the prosecutor of 
Professor Swing, the ne plus ultra of Presbyterian- 
ism, in his annual sermon before the General Assem- 
bly, at Saratoga, 1879, actually declared that while a 
Presbyterian minister must accept " the standards," 
the laity ma}' believe as much or as little of them as 
the}' please ! In this way it is hoped that the faith 
may be kept sound, though nobody shall accept it 
but the clergy. How long will the pulpit preach 
" the standards" after the pews have abandoned 
them? 

Two years later, in February, 1881, the "Inte- 
rior," of Chicago, informed its readers that while 
the "Confession of Faith is a Calvinistic docu- 



MORE EXPLICIT CONCESSIONS. 133 

ment," there is " an unwritten law" which permits 
the minister to " preach a full and free salvation 
to all." The "Methodist," in view of this Janus- 
faced theology observes, " Calvinism is hunting with 
a double-barrelled gun, a college barrel and a pulpit 
barrel. The college barrel is loaded with Predes- 
tination, and the pulpit barrel is loaded with Free 
Salvation." 

Rev. David Macrae, one of the best known minis- 
ters in Scotland, says, — 

"The Westminster dogma of everlasting torment in itself is 
a subversion of God's character as revealed in Christ and 
amounts to a denial of the gospel. Carried to its issue, it robs 
God of his goodness, his mercy, and his justice. It robs him 
even of his sovereignty, giving sin a power of maintaining itself 
against him forever, and so far leaving the devil to all eternity 
master of the situation." 

Dr. Arthur Crosby said : — 

" He could not conceive of eternal punishment except on the 
basis of eternal sinning. If a soul does not sin eternally, it 
should not, and he believed, would not be punished eternally. 
He believed there are opportunities for sinning and repenting in 
the future life. He believed the salvation of Christ is offered 
freely to all. What the mode of punishment is to be, or how 
God will effect a reconciliation with sinning souls in the here- 
after, he was not prepared to say." 

Rev. Howard Crosb}*, D. D., says, — 

"Calvin accepted all the contradictions of metaphysical 
Augustinianism, and made a scheme of divine sovereignty, at 
the expense of divine beauty and gospel grace" 



134 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

The general drift among Presbyterians is exhib- 
ited in the subjoined extracts. 

In the Annual Narrative " of the State of Religion 
within the bounds of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America," which was published 
by the order of the General Assembly, in 1878, 
occurs the following : — 

"It is to be feared that some of our people have lost their 
love for and their faith in the glorious old saving doctrines of the 
gospel as they are embodied in our Confession and Catechisms; 
and so have lost all relish for them themselves, and all desire 
to teach them to their children." 

The best portion of the Presbyterian Church of 
Scotland has for a long time been* endeavoring to 
improve the standards of that church, especially the 
Westminster Confession. A "statement" was put 
forth, in 1878, which in its first article declares 
that free offer of salvation is made to every man, 
without distinction, on the ground of Christ's per- 
fect sacrifice ; in the second, that the doctrine of the 
divine decrees is to be held in harmoiry with the 
truth that " God will have all men to be saved," 
and with the " responsibilit}' of men in dealing with 
the free and unrestricted offer of eternal life ; " in the 
third, that man's inability is not of such a nature 
as to affect his responsibility, and that his depravit} T 
is not of such a nature as to prevent him from per- 
forming actions in any sense good ; in the fourth, 
that those who accept the standards are not required 



MORE EXPLICIT CONCESSIONS. 135 

to hold that any infants are lost, or that all heathen 
must perish. 

The learned Dr. Philip Schaff says : — 

" Everybody must admit that the vast majorit/ of mankind, 
no worse by nature than the rest, and without personal guilt, 
are born and grow up in heathen darkness, out of the reach of 
means of grace, and are thus, as far as we know, actually 'passed 
by ' in this world. No Orthodox system can logically reconcile 
this stubborn and awful fact with the universal love and impartial 
justice of God." 1 

The Presbyterian Church retains the diabolical 
statements of doctrine on which it was originally 
founded. But it is difficult to find an intelligent 
minister or layman who does not discard the chief 
statements of the Westminster Confession. The 
New School looks with as much pity on the less 
advanced Old School as does the Old School to-day 
look back on its predecessors of thirty years ago. 
Still retaining the sheet anchor of error, it has nev- 
ertheless made great progress toward the liberal 
faith. 

The most extraordinary evasions are practised by 
preachers and people who desire to preserve their 
church connections and still do not accept the car- 
dinal principles on which their church is founded. 

Even in Presbyterian Scotland, where Calvinism 
is served to the people with less admixture of Chris- 
tian truth than elsewhere ®n earth, the divine leaven 

1 Creeds of Christendom, vol. i. p. 793. 



136 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

is fermenting. The London "Christian World " 
(Evangelical) relates, in 1887 : — 

" Professor Candlish has been unsuccessful in convincing the 
Glasgow Free Presbytery that the time has arrived for bringing 
the subordinate standards of the church into harmony with the 
doctrines preached by ministers of the church ; twenty-nine 
ministers and eight elders supported his motion, while twenty- 
seven ministers and thirteen elders voted with Principal Douglas, 
who moved the amendment. It is extraordinary that when such 
a question came up, not one-fourth of the elders and not one-half 
of the ministers who are members were present. Mr. Eoss 
Taylor humorously said the Westminster Confession was an 
admirable statement for all time of the precise position of the 
church of Christ in this country two hundred and fifty years 
ago ! Dr. A. A. Bonar told how he and his fellow-students had 
doubts and difficulties when at the hall, but they just went on 
1 plunging in the mire ' till they reached firm ground and signed 
every word of the confession. Professor Lindsay held that he 
never signed the confession plain and simple ; he signed it as 
' approven by former assemblies of this church.' Dr. Adam 
strongly opposed the transmission of the overture, as did also 
Mr. Gault, another ministerial member of presbytery who has 
no charge. Mr. D. Gardiner, elder, asked the ministers to pict- 
ure in their mind's eye their sessions, and to say, without 
laughing, whether these could stand an oral examination in the 
confession. His firm belief was that the subscription of it as a 
condition of holding office was a sham." 

In December, 1887, the " New York Evangelist " 
(Presbyterian) said through a correspondent : — 

'^ Is it not reasonable for a person to turn to the Confession 
of Faith to see what Presbyterians believe ; and can we find fault 
with Ingersoll or any one else who brings this up against us ? 
The Confession of Faith is a hindrance to the cause of Christ, 
and a stumbling-block to many a one. That so many are indo- 



MORE EXPLICIT CONCESSIONS. 137 

lent or indifferent enough to be ignorant of what it teaches does 
not alter the case. We ought not to be hampered by a Confes- 
sion of a past generation teaching doctrines which we, basing 
our faith on God's Word, cannot believe." 

How general, even among so rigid, and yet so 
kindly and intelligent a people as the Presbyterians, 
must not such a spirit of protest be found. And 
what a change in our direction has occurred to 
produce it, and tolerate its expression in an organ 
of that great branch of the Church. 

Dr. Church, Dean of St. Paul's, remarks : — 

" I should be disloyal to him whom I believe in and worship 
as the Lord of truth, if 1 doubted that honest seeking would 
at last find him. Even if it do not find him here, mans destiny 
stops not at the grave, and many, we may be sure, will know him 
there, who did not know him here" 1 

Rev. Brooke Lambert, Vicar of Greenwich, Eng., 
(in February, 1885) said : — 

" As regards the attitude towards our fellow sinners, a great 
change of opinion is slowly making way. A larger hope is 
breathed, and that above a whisper, that God has room for more 
than we thought in his heart and home. It is opposed on the 
same ground as the admission of the Gentiles : ' What advantage 
then hath the Jews?' The truth is great, and what is truth will 
prevail. This hope, that Christ will gather together in one all 
the children of God scattered abroad, all who have a right to 
call God Father, must be held in connection with the mystery 
of the free will by which men so persistently shut themselves 
out, like Jerusalem of old, from what God would do for them. 
Yet God is stronger than evil. Yes, God is stronger than evil. 

1 Quoted by Farrar, Eternal Hope. 



138 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

A simple truism it should seem to a Christian mind. Yet how 
many systems of divinity which have gained a wide acceptance 
in Christendom have been based upon the assumption that the 
very opposite of this is true, — namely, that evil is stronger 
than God." 

Among many notable expressions, Archdeacon 
Farrar says : — 

"If this awful doctrine is to be decided by texts, then the 
original language must be appealed to and interpreted in its 
proper and historical significance. Where would be the popular 
teachings about hell if we calmly and deliberately erased from 
our English Bibles the three words. * damnation,' 'hell,' and 
* everlasting ' ? Yet I say unhesitatingly — I say, claiming 
the fullest right to speak with the authority of knowledge, — I 
say with the calmest and most unflinching sense of responsi- 
bility, — I say, standing here in the sight of God and my 
Saviour, and it may be, of the angels and the spirits of the 
dead, that not one of those words ought to stand any longer in 
our English Bibles ; and that being, in our present acceptation 
of them, simply mistranslations, they most unquestionably will 
not stand in the Kevised Version of the Bible if the revisers 
have understood their duty." 

This, says an English newspaper, — 

"is a candid and welcome, though tardy, admission. Human- 
ity's instinct long ago arrived at this conclusion ; enjoyment of 
it, however, has been interrupted only by the class to which 
the reverend speaker belongs. Vox populi vox Dei contains 
much truth." 

The Episcopal Prayer-book compels every devout 
Episcopalian to pray for universal salvation : — 

"That it may phase thee to have mercy upon all men, we beseech 
thee to hear us, good Lord.' 7 



MORE EXPLICIT CONCESSIONS. 139 

If the worshipper does not offer a sinful sacrifice, 
but prays " in faith, nothing doubting," he believes 
that his petition will be granted. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury expresses — 

"a hope that, after the day of judgment, God's mercy may, 
in the lapse of infinite ages, find some mode of restoring the 
lost, consistently with the maintenance of his purity and 
justice." 1 

Rev. R. A. Holland, D. D.", of New Orleans, 
has uttered most eloquent testimony. He sa}'s : — 

"God's children are we all, rich and poor, wise and unwise, — 
the tempted who have proved themselves strong, and tempted 
who have fallen. Wayward though we may he, God loves us 
still ; wanderers into evil lands, he keeps the door of his home 
wide open for our returning footsteps. Sometime, I know not 
the day nor the hour, hut sometime, because Christ was born, 
there is to be a great and last Christmas, when all of his 
scattered ones shall meet in the Father's house and keep high 
and unending festival." 

Rev. R. Heber Newton, D. D. : — 

" The doctrine that ' God is love ' was so eloquently preached 
that the theologians reconsidered the doctrines of retribution. 
Even the Episcopal Church, in recently reviewing the Articles, 
struck out the one about eternal punishment. ' When Universal- 
ism began its mission, religion, so to speak, had become ossified 
and rigid ; and it was necessary, to meet the advanced thought 
of the age, that some change be made in it. The force that 
wrought this change developed outside of the church, and it has 
been instrumental in banishing much of the barbarism and 
cruelty of expression which Christians borrowed from the 
pagans." 

1 Word of God and the Ground of Faith. 



140 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

The "open" question is growing more and more 
open in this church. It is doubtful whether man}' 
of its communion, outside of a few mere theologians 
and " here and there a traveller" among its laymen, 
accept the doctrine of unending torment in any 
form. It is certainly very rarely preached by its 
more prominent and eminent clergy. 

During 1885, many " straws" indicated the direc- 
tion of the theological winds. The Presbyterians, by 
the Westminster Confession of Faith, are logically 
committed to the salvation of " elect infants" onlv. 
Infants of the other class are not mentioned. The 
" Evangelist" endeavored to have the words, u Elect 
infants dying in infanc3 T are saved," expunged from 
the Confession of Faith. It admitted by implication 
that non-elect infants are not saved, which it says 
no one now believes. In confessions of faith it holds 
there should be honesty and truth. 

In Chicago, Eev. Mr. Bland, in 1885, read a paper 
before the Methodist Ministerial Association, in 
which he said : — 

*■■ We [that is, the Methodist denomination] are drifting in*o 
virtual Universalism. Our standard of theology at Evanston 
Garrett Biblical Institute is so lame in its theodicy that any 
student who has any Universalistic proclivities would be con- 
firmed after embracing the teaching there given." 

Look at the evidences of growth on several points 
during a generation. Leaving an aggressive atti- 



MORE EXPLICIT CONCESSIONS. 141 

tude, insisting on the old creeds, and eagerly rush- 
ing forward to assert them, the sacrificial churches 
are now become timid, apologetic, — still retaining 
the ancient horrors " as matter of record," but 
rarely announcing, and almost never defending 
them. For example, the Boston "Congregationalist," 
in 1880, declared that " Orthodox}' disowns a hell 
of material fire and brimstone," "a literal lake of 
fire," " a vast and burning prison," " a material hell 
of worm and flame," which it says, u fancy has at- 
tributed to Orthodoxy." And yet, the literature 
of Orthodox}^ up to a very recent date, is full of 
descriptions of these very things as realities. In 
fact not only did Jonathan Edwards say, — 

"The world will probably be converted into a great lake or 
liquid globe of fire, — a vast ocean of fire, in which the wicked 
shall be overwhelmed, vast waves or billows of fire continually 
rolling over their heads u . . their heads, their eyes, their 
tongues, their feet, their loins, and their vitals shall forever be 
full of a glowing, melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very 
rocks and elements, " — 

but even the living Spurgeon tells the sinner sub- 
stantially the same. See pages 38 and 39 of this 
volume. Multitudes of similar passages might be 
cited from representative authors, decreasing in num- 
ber with each succeeding year, let us thankfully re- 
cord. Indeed, nothing is more indicative of progress 
— of the approach of the sacrificial churches toward 
our own — than the decrease in number of those 



142 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

horrible declarations, once the general rule, now only 
the phenomenal exception. 

Once sin was held to be infinite in its nature, and 
the smallest sin was said to deserve endless damna- 
tion ; in the words of the Westminster Confession 
(chap. xv. art. 4), " There is no sin so small but it 
deserves damnation." Now the doctrine is that the 
sinner will be punished forever because he will sin 
forever. 

The second of the Articles of Religion found in the 
Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church speaks 
of Jesus as one " who truly suffered and was cruci- 
fied, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, 
and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but 
also for the actual sins of men." 

This strange language is contained in an edition 
before us, printed in 1884. Almost universally the 
same church and its " evangelical" associates regard 
Jesus as the effect and proof of God's love for the 
sinner, and not the cause of it, and yet the old error 
is still printed, as if to show how far the church has 
departed from its alleged standards. 

The heathen were till very lately regarded as lost, 
utterly ; but the u Andover Review," for October, 
1885, in an assault upon the theology of the time 
when the American Board came into existence, 
writes, " The intelligence and heart of the Christian 
Church not merelj' decline to accept the old dogma 
of the perdition of the heathen, — they repudiate it." 



MORE EXPLICIT CONCESSIONS. 143 

Take the progress on the subject of Infant Dam- 
nation. No one can be found to advocate this worse 
than heathen dogma, and in some quarters it is even 
denied that the horrible idea was ever taught. 

In fact the contrast between the present and the 
very recent past is as dawn to midnight, as spring 
to winter. The "leaven" our church has cast into 
Christendom, has already produced such changes as 
unmistakably prophesy the coming day when "the 
whole shall be leavened." 

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes gives the final word 
of the poet, and shows the power of the truth in 
reflecting its light from centre to centre of theological 
learning : — 

Caught by a spark and fanned by every gale, 
A brighter radiance gilds the roof of Yale ; 
Amherst and Williams bid their flambeaus shine, 
And Bowdoin answers through her groves of pine ; 
'er Princeton's sands the far reflections steal 
Where mighty Edwards stamped his iron heel : 
Nay, on the hill where old beliefs were bound 
Fast as if Styx had girt them nine times round, 
Bursts such a light that trembling souls inquire 
If the whole church of Calvin is on fire ; 
Well may they ask ; for what so brightly burns 
As a dry creed that nothing ever learns ? 



CHAPTER X. 

POST-MORTEM PROBATION. 

T^HE subject of post-mortem probation is attract- 
ing great attention among Christians, in all the 
divisions of the Partialist church. The wonderful 
parables of our Lord teach that the Heavenly Seeker 
will continue his search after the lost silver, the 
wandering sheep, the wayward prodigal, "until he 
find it." Therefore God's love for the soul, and 
human obligation and ability to return to God can 
never cease, and when the "uttermost farthing" 
shall be paid, the prison-doors of sin will open, and 
the sinner emerge. These once powerfully influ- 
ential facts have been lost sight of for centuries, 
until recently revived. 

Anciently the idea that Christ's labors extend into 
the future state was universally held, but for the 
last few centuries it has been lost sight of, except 
that the Catholic church has preserved a semblance 
of the great truth in its doctrine of Purgatory. 

On 1 Pet. iii. 18-20, Dean Alford says our 
Lord "did preach salvation in fact to the disem- 
bodied spirits." Tayler Lewis says: "There was 
a work of Christ in hades ; he makes proclamation 



POST-MORTEM PROBATION. 145 

in hades to those who are there in ward. This 
interpretation was almost universally adopted by 
the early Christian Church." Professor Huidekoper 
sa}'s : "In the second and third centuries every 
branch and division of Christians believed that Christ 
preached to the departed." Dietelmair saj's, "This 
doctrine was believed in every Christian church." 
Dr. John H. Kurtz, in his "Manual of Sacred His- 
tory," . approved by the " New York Evangelist," 
"Evangelical Review," and Anclover " Bibliotheca 
Sacra," after commenting on Romans x. 13, etc., 
and 1 Peter iii. 19, 20, saj^s : "It seems to follow 
necessarily that the gospel will yet be preached in 
hades to those who without any fault of their own 
obtained no knowledge of Christ in this world." 

Long overlooked, this great 'truth is rapidly as- 
serting itself, as the saving clause of the Divine 
character, and is now a very prominent question 
among the so-called Evangelical churches. 

Several professors at Andover, Mass., the location 
of the Theological School of the Congregationalists, 
affirm the necessity of post-mortem probation, and 
an action has been brought against them in the 
theological courts, the indictment in which con- 
tains the following counts. See the creed of this 
institution on page 13. They are accused of 
teaching — 

"That there is and will be probation for all men who do not 
decisively reject Christ during the earthly life, and that this 

10 



146 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

should be emphasized, made influential and even central in 
systematic theology. 

"That there is a 'new theology better than the old,' which, 
we apprehend, is not in harmony with the creed, but fatally 
opposed to the same. 

"That the said creed teaches that orthodox and consistent 
Calvinism, that some of the professors apparently have no belief 
in, such as the following, which says : — 

"'I believe . . . that the souls of believers are at their 
death made perfect in holiness, and so immediately pass into 
glory ; that their bodies being still united to Christ will at the 
resurrection be raised up in glory, and that the saints will be 
made perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all 
eternity ; but that the wicked will awake to shame and ever- 
lasting contempt, and with devils be plunged into the lake that 
burneth with fire and brimstone forever and ever.' " 

One must •sympathize with the humane views of 
the indicted professors, though it is not easy to 
endorse their course in teaching sentiments contrary 
to those they were employed to inculcate. Their 
theology is better than their morality. 

Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth, one of the advocates 
of the new movement saj's : — 

"I believe that the end of probation for the individual is not, 
and from the nature of moral freedom cannot be, any outward 
circumstance, temporal accident, or physical change, like the 
death of the body." 

And the " Christian Union " adds : — 

" The current doubt upon this subject grows out of a change 
in conception respecting the character of God. The world is 
coming less and less to look upon him, as the old theology did, 
as a King or Moral Governor, and more and more, as Christ 



POST-MORTEM PROBATION. 147 

did, as a Father ; and it is difficult, not to say impossible, to 
make moderns believe that a heavenly Father can consent to 
leave any child of his to wander off into the night of eternal 
sin and estrangement, so long as any measures which infinite 
love can devise are left untried to bring him back again to his 
Father's love. To assert that God has in this life, for all his 
lost children, exhausted the resources of Divine pity is to 
contradict the plain appearances of life," 

111 the same line Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, D. D., for- 
merly missionary to Turkey, expresses his views 
very freely in the October (1886) number of the 
44 Bibliotheca Sacra." One page of his article is 
unconsciously devoted to showing the superiority 
of the Moslem view of the future state to that taught 
by the Orthodox Christian theolog}'. 

" All Asia [he says] believes in a continuance of man's pro- 
bation without any definite time-limit, like death. This is 
evident from the universal prevalence of prayers for the dead. 
About fifteen millions of petitions are offered to Allah for them 
every day. . . . All believe in a state after death, not fixed and 
irrevocable, but admitting of alleviation and final deliverance." 

The charity and mercy of the Moslem system 
stand in strong contrast to the inhumanity and 
injustice of popular theology. 

Rev. J. W. Brier, an aged Presbyterian clergy- 
man, writes to the " Church Union " : — 

" It requires no argument to prove that the great mass of 
men and women who die have not reached that fixedness of 
character that makes their redemption from perpetual and ever- 
lasting rebellion against God either an impossible or an improba- 
ble thing. We see hardened men persist in open rebellion 



148 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

against God for threescore and ten years, and after all they are 
converted. Does physical death so change the laws of mind, 
and so weaken the appliances of mercy, that comparatively 
tender and innocent boys and girls cannot be saved hereafter 
when their circumstances may be far more favorable to the work 
of grace ? Joseph Cook's prestige as a great thinker may force 
his theories without proof down the throats of prejudiced and 
credulous people, but there are men outside of Boston who 
require something more than his assertions." 

The American Board of Missions has resolved not 
to send missionaries into the foreign field who accept 
the new-school theology. This action produced 
intense feeling at Andover, and the new-school 
leaders determined to test conclusions at an ad- 
journed meeting of the Board at Des Moines. But 
by a majority of forty-eight to twenty-two the Board 
" distinctly and emphatically" disavowed its belief 
in the doctrine of a future probation, and instructed 
its prudential committee to exercise great care on 
this point in the selection of missionaries. Of eighty 
members absent, seventy sent letters condemning 
the new theolog} r ; and Dr. Egbert Smyth, the head 
of the new school, was put off the prudential com- 
mittee by sevent}^ to thirteen votes. The only point 
carried by the new-school men at Des Moines was 
a resolution asking the Board to consider the expe- 
diency of referring "difficult applications" to a 
council of the churches. 

The number, learning, and prominence of those 
who are endeavoring to smooth the wrinkled front 



POST-MORTEM PROBATION, 149 

of Orthodoxy is a refreshing and encouraging sign 
of the times. One of them, Rev. Mr. Hume, a 
missionary, has been sent back to his field of labor 
notwithstanding he said at a meeting : — 

" I know I have gone home with a heavy heart, and often 
dim eyes, because the gospel of love and mercy which T was 
seeking to give to these men was followed by a feeling of bitter- 
ness in their hearts, because they thought that it implied an 
eternity of sorrow for their ancestors." 

By a vote of seven to three in the committee his 
departure was postponed. The " Andover Review" 
cannot restrain its indignation, and concludes its 
article as follows : — 

" The common sense of average Christian men will get at the 
heart of this matter. It is known that the most urgent appeals 
have been made for men, but that when men have offered them- 
selves, and it is certain that others like them are ready to follow, 
they have been rejected. It is not feared that they will preach 
a vitiated gospel, or will corrupt the heathen, or will be lacking 
in diligence and earnestness. In a word, they are not able to 
affirm that millions of the heathen will be condemned forever 
without having had any knowledge of redemption through the 
Saviour of mankind." 

It seems that missionaries who have been taught 
the spirit of the gospel and the humanitarian ten- 
dencies of the age, are ashamed to tell the heathen 
that their ancestors are suffering in a fearful and 
hopeless hell. 

Rev. F. H. Thayer, after having uttered the sub- 
joined words, was pronounced orthodox, and installed 



150 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

as pastor of a Congregational church in Quincy, 
Illinois : — 

"These principles imply that if there be those in pagan lands, 
living without the light of the gospel, who have not had a moral 
probation, or those in Christian lands, dying at any period of 
life, from infancy to age, without an adequate moral probation, 
such probation will be granted them. While we cannot and do 
not dogmatically assert from Scripture that there is a future 
probation, it is reasonable to suppose from the fact of Christ's 
mission, and its universal bearing, that although the obdurately 
wicked of heathen lands, as well as of Christian lands, are with- 
out excuse, those who are feeling after God, if happily they may 
find him, will have the Christ presented to them. Every human 
being will have a moral probation. The implication seems fair 
to be this. I expect it will be so. The Scripture does not teach 
the contrary. It does not forbid the expectation." 

So that it is orthodox to believe in post mortem 
probation. 

The " Christian World" (London) says : — 

" It does not chime in with our notion of Congregational 
principles to exclude a successful worker from the mission field 
simply because he holds a doctrine which is maintained by some 
of the most acute Biblical critics of the day, and as to the truth 
or otherwise of which no one can positively affirm or deny until 
all truth is revealed beyond the grave." 

The " World *' continues : — 

M A theology of good news rather than of threatening and 
terror has almost universally taken possession of the English 
pulpit. But, as we have often pointed out, many of the 
churches of America have a long way to go to be as free as we 
happily have become in the Old Country. Even the Congrega- 
tionalists, the freest of most of them, are in bonds to many 



POST-MORTEM PROBATION. 151 

exploded notions formed in dark times, and are curiously hugging 
the chains. "The Andover Review," and the professors of the 
college of that name, and the men they are putting into the 
churches, are so enlightening the public mind as to alarm 
the defenders of President Edwards's dreadful doctrines, that an 
open conflict has now come about between the two schools. . . . 
Apart from all considerations bearing on the case of the Andover 
professors, it is desirable that dogmas which impeach the justice 
and love of God should be permitted to become obsolete, and 
should leave the mysteries of the future to be suffused with the 
light of Christian hope." 

Nothing is more apparent than that the grave will 
not much longer be regarded as a great gulf, across 
which even Omnipotent love cannot pass ; that God 
will not be charged with having made a dead line 
to limit illimitable mercy. Christians of all churches 
are rapidly coming to see that in all the vicissitudes 
of that immortal existence wiiich God has bestowed 
on his children, hereafter as here, he will be as 
willing to receive man as man can be anxious to 
return to allegiance ; that the door of mercy will 
never close between God and man. In fact the next 
great step of progress that will be made by the 
sacrificial churches will be taken by the main body, 
which will inevitably follow the advance guard now 
insisting on the possibility of post-mortem probation. 



CHAPTER XI. 

CONCESSIONS TO THE CHARACTER OF UNIVERSALIS]*! 
AND ITS ADVOCATES. 

T^HE concessions of the advocates of so-called 
Orthodox}', to the character of those who accept 
the broader and brighter faith, and the influence of 
that faith on its advocates, is remarkably illustrated 
in the general praise bestowed upon Origen, the 
great saint and scholar, one of the most eminent 
of all the Christian fathers, who was the most promi- 
nent ancient advocate of universal salvation after 
the apostles. We give a few of the many testimo- 
nials that might be cited : — 

" A man of almost divine endowments." l 

" The greatest master of the church after the apostles." 2 

" Certainly if any man deserves to 'stand first in the catalogue 

of saints and martyrs, and to be annually held up as an example 

to Christians, this is the man. " 3 

* * I had rather he with Origen wherever he is, than with 

Justinian and Theodora wherever they are." 4 
'* His whole life was one unbroken prayer." 5 

1 Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, Panegyric of Origen. 

2 Saint Jerome, Praef. in Quest, in Gen. 

3 Mosheim. 

4 F. D. Maurice. 

5 Canon Westcott. 



UNIVERSALISM AND ITS ADVOCATES. 153 

" We know of no man in the whole Christian era, except 
Saint Panl, who labored so incessantly, and rendered to the 
Church such inestimable services." * 

"The condemnation of Origen was a death blow to theological 
science in the Greek Church, and left it to stiffen gradually into 
a mechanical traditionalism and formalism." 2 

Nor was he exceptional : — 

" The more profoundly learned any one was in Christian 
antiquity, so much the more did he cherish and defend the hope 
that the sufferings of the wicked would at some time come to an 
end. (Quanto quis altius eruditione in antiquitate Christiana 
eminuit, tanto magis, spem finiendorum olim cruciatu.ni aluit 
atque defendit.) " 3 

Candid observers echo this sentiment of modern 
accepters of the doctrine. Occasionally, a belated 
and benighted critic repeats the thought of one of the 
American Tract Society's publications which says : 

" If the doctrine of Universalism should become general 
human society could not exist. Like atheism, to which it is 
near kin, its malignant tendency is not fully seen while society 
at large is under the influence of a contrary belief." 

But the best men who do not agree with us en- 
tirely disagree with the writer of the preceding 
paragraph. 

Of Thomas Erskine, of Linlathen, the sainted 
Scotch Universalist, Principal Shairp, who did not 
accept his views, said : — 

" No man I ever knew had a deeper sense of the exceeding 
evil of sin, and of the Divine necessity that sin must be always 

1 Farrar, "Mercy and Judgment," p. 307. 

2 Prof. P. Schaff. 

3 Doederlein, "Theology," § 223, Obs. 8. 



154 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

misery. His universalistic views did not in any way relax his 
profound sense of God's abhorrence of sin." 

And one correspondent wrote to him : — 

" Everything in you reminds me of God." 

Rev. Mr. Jackson, once a Baptist, then a Univer- 

salist, and afterwards a Baptist, says in his "Man 

of Sorrows" (pp. 406, 407) : — 

** To speak of them as I have found them, I must say that, 
for good morals, acts of kindness, sociability, benevolence, and 
hospitality, I have never seen them excelled ; nor was I ever 
united with any body of ministers who treated me with so much 
kindness as they. And believe me, my reader, their kindness 
has caused me more uneasiness than their wickedness. For 
when I contrasted their kindness to me with the cruel treatment 
I everywhere met with from some ministers of other denomina- 
tions, and recollected that Christ had said, * By their fruits 
shall ye know them,' I became bewildered, and had my mind 
perpetually on the rack, not knowing how to account for such 
strange inconsistencies ! And the only conclusion I could 
arrive at was, the Universal] st ministers w T ere wrong in theory 
but right in practice, while those alluded to of other denomi- 
nations were right in theory but wrong in practice. Nor have 
I seen any cause as yet to depart from that conclusion." 

Some very positive concessions as to the work 
and character of modern Universalism and Universal- 
ists ma\ T be given here. " Zion's Herald" (Metho- 
dist) in February, 1870, said : — 

" This organism exists. It is respectable in numbers, wealth, 
and position. It has a literature of its own, that is strong in 
the defence of its peculiar views. It is, as a whole, more faith- 
ful to the leading moral questions of the age than some more 
orthodox and heterodox sects. It has a true and steadfast word 
for Temperance and Prohibition, — no body surpassing, but few 



UNIVERSALISM AND ITS ADVOCATES. 155 

equalling it in zeal for this first of humanitarian causes. It is 
quick to recognize the liberty of woman, in some paths of this 
liberty outrunning all rival bodies. It will not speedily die. 
It is entrenching itself to stay. Clinging to its idea of a church 
far more closety than its kindred sect the Unitarians, much 
nearer the people in its origin and instincts, holding fast to the 
Bible as the ground of its belief, however strange may be its 
interpretation thereof, it has, for these reasons, a longer life than 
those may desire who have contended against it so steadily and 
victoriously." 

The Boston "Olive Branch " (Methodist) once 
said : — 

"We should be happy to see what we think erroneous in the 
creed of Universalists refuted and put down, but we never will 
be a party to an attack on the morals and characters of a class 
of men who, as far as we know, stand as high on these points as 
any of their more orthodox neighbors." 

Among the most remarkable statements on the 
subject yet given by any opponent, — notable for 
equal candor and truthfulness, — is that of Rev. 
Dr. W. W. Patton before the Chicago Theological 
School. Note that he accredits our church with 
having redeemed the theology of Christendom from 
absolute falsehood. He says : — 

"1. Universalism has served to correct wrong interpretations 
of Scripture. 2. Universalism has righted us up in the abstract 
arguments from reason. 3. Universalism has put a check upon 
a heartless representation of Divine severity. 4. Universalism 
has aided to keep up the idea of retribution in this world. 
5. Universalism has prevented a too conclusive reliance upon 
future punishment as a motive to the Christian life. 6. Uni- 
versalism has corrected certain views as to the extent of the 
atonement." 



156 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

Rev. Robert West, late editor of the " Advance," 
once remarked in a letter to that journal, October, 

1878, — 

" Between Calvinism, as taught hy its founder in his famous 
1 Institutes,' and Universalism, if I were compelled to embrace 
either, I should without hesitation choose the latter." 

At another time Mr. West quoted the following 
from the " Chicago Evening Journal," with that " si- 
lence that gives consent :" — 

" The truth is, we take it, that, Scripturally, the doctrine of the 
eternity of punishment is almost beyond question ; hut as a mere 
matter of reason, leaving the Scriptures out of account, the anti- 
hell champions have the advantage. " 

The editor of one of the Methodist " Advocates," 
in February, 1878, delivered the following trilemma : 

" Calvinism is a scheme of limited mercy and of unlimited ex- 
ercise of power on God's part. 

" Methodism is a scheme of unlimited mercy and of limited ex- 
ercise of power. 

" Universalism is a scheme of unlimited mercy and of unlimited 
exercise of power." 

This concession "gives away" the theology of its 
author. 

The Rev. John Leland, a once well-known Baptist 
minister, was in the company of a number of his 
brethren, when one of them asked him what he 
thought of Universalism, — hoping for a word of 
disapprobation. Mr. Leland answered : — 

" When I feel most deeply the love of God and the highest 
communion with my Saviour, I pray most fervently that others 



UNIVERSALISM AND ITS ADVOCATES. 157 

may enjoy the same blessing. Nor can I think of friend or foe, 
acquaintance or stranger, at home or abroad, among all the na- 
tions of the earth, without sincerely praying that they may be 
brought to the joy unspeakable and full of glory which love of 
God gives me. Now, if so small a portion of love as my poor 
heart can contain produces such desires, what must all the ful- 
ness of God do ? " and he turned his back and left the circle. 

The Swedenborgian author of " Footprints of the 
Saviour," Rev. Julian K. S my the, remarks on page 
194 of his excellent work : — 

"It is not necessary to think of Divine wrath as standing over 
against the moral baseness of the world. It is not necessary to 
think of Christ as a separate person from God, trying by means 
of prayers and the sight of his wounds to intercept the Divine 
judgments, trying to make the Infinite One more merciful than 
he is, as though he had not a heart to pity the sins and miseries 
of a groaning world ! Nowhere in the Scriptures shall we find 
that such a mediator is necessary. John in his old age looked 
with open vision upon the bright scenery of heaven. He saw no 
monarch sitting on a throne with lowering brow ; nothing to tell 
of Divine wrath ; but, as if to prove to him the constancy and 
tenderness of the Divine love, though wounded by men, denials, 
and sins, he saw in the very midst of the throne, — what ? The 
stern Deity of our theologies ? No ! He saw in the midst of 
that throne ' a Lamb as if it had been slain ; ' as if, says one, 
* there was not in Palestine a Calvary alone, but away in the 
heart of God, where we crucify him by our disobedience every 
day.' What we need, then, is not an intercessor, in the sense 
that God needs interceding, and as if, unless some one step in 
between us and the Divine Judge, our cause is lost. What we 
do need, and what we have, is a medium, a channel between the 
infinite perfections of God and the vileness of man, such as will 
transmit the life of the former into the weakness and sicknesses 
of the latter, — that God and man may not dwell apart, but be 
brought at one ; man lifted up by repentance, to abide in the 



158 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

wisdom and love of the Lord ; the Lord living in the cleansed 
heart of the man. ' And I (the Lord said) if I be lifted up, will 
draw all men unto me.' That was the true atonement, — the 
Lord glorifying his humanity with the very divine love or father- 
hood of his nature, and then raising men up into conjunction 
with himself." 

The late Professor Diman, of Brown University, 
was an outspoken advocate of the coming faith 
of his church. In his memoirs, Professor George 
P. Fisher, of the same college, quotes his words, 
and neither dissents nor condemns the position of 
Professor Diman. Once this departure would have 
been suppressed, or condemned with holy horror. 

Rev. Dr. Webber, of Troy, New York (Presbyte- 
rian) , remarks : — 

" The hope of ultimate universal restoration has been held in 
all ages of the church, unless we except the apostolic. It is be- 
ing pushed to the front now, as the final answer to this question 
[Are there few that be saved ?]. Universalists have changed 
largely in their views of late, and are disposed, as far as I know, 
to abandon the crude notion of purification in the article of 
death — as if there were any magical influence in the dissolu- 
tion of the body to cleanse the soul and translate it spotless to 
heaven, no matter what the life may here have been — for the 
doctrine of future punishment which shall issue, sooner or later, 
in the restoration of all mankind. There is much to be said in 
favor of this belief from a rational point of view. While it may 
often have its ground in a perverted moral sense, it has found a 
deep root in the noblest and most evangelical Christians. It seems 
to honor the Deity, his power, wisdom, and grace. It is an ex- 
pression of a heartfelt desire, always strongest in the best, for 
the complete triumph of good over evil ; for the full deliverance 
and perfect harmony of the groaning creation. . . . 



UNIVERSALISM AND ITS ADVOCATES. 159 

" It is believed by many that this was the hope of the apostle 
Paul, many passages of whose letters look with earnest expecta- 
tion in this direction. It may be further said that the senti- 
ment of humanity, which Christ's spirit has inspired, revolts 
from the doctrine of the eternity of hell, and would fain ' trust 
the larger hope.' Such hope of the feelings is worthy of respect. 
The mighty Yes of the heart is sometimes stronger than the No of 
the head ; shall 1 say truer ? I pity the Christian whose heart 
never faltered and drew back from acceptance of a doctrine which 
carries with it such terrible views of the destiny of men." 

But more remarkable still is the concession of 
President Northrup, formerly a professor in Yale, 
but now President of the University of Minnesota. 
He is a Congregationalist, but not a clergyman. He 
says : — 

"And twenty-five years ago there was an awful amount of 
meaning in that word 'eternity.' 

" Exactly how it is now in regard to this matter I do not 
undertake to say. I think it cannot be doubted that the change 
of feeling is great. Most people remember very distinctly that 
the 'mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.' 
Whether their memory extends any farther does not clearly 
appear. But that there is a very general willingness to trust 
the case of everybody to the mercy of the Lord, and an absence 
of any serious and troublesome apprehension as to the eternal 
destiny of those who have died without any special evidence of 
faith in Christ, cannot, I think, be doubted. 

" One cause of this comfortable feeling of Christians respect- 
ing the fate of those who die out of Christ is, I think, the 
change of view respecting the character of the punishment 
inflicted in the next world. The lurid images of the past no 
longer represent the fate and suffering of the lost. The Lord 
is not expected to interfere very much with the natural work- 
ings of causes ; and thus the soul is expected to go on in the 
next world in the direction in which it was headed when it left 



160 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

this world. If it was not a very immoral and unclean soul, it 
is supposed that it would not suffer very badly in the next 
world ; and in any event, having gotten rid of the horror which 
used to be associated with future punishment, the church is 
very comfortable in leaving the details of that punishment to 
God, — certain that he will do what is right, — and very hopeful 
that the results will not be so bad for the impenitent man as 
has been feared. From all this it appears that the church has 
made a general movement in the direction of modified Universal - 
ism. Many people in the church will doubtless be unwilling to 
admit this. But it is so. Pastors in their inner consciousness 
know it to be so. The people in the pews know it to be so. It 
is not necessaiy for the pulpit to tell the pews anything about 
it. Both have been swept away by this quiet movement. The 
relation of pulpit and pew to each other is practically unchanged, 
but both have gone from their former anchorage and are slowly 
drifting. They will land together ultimately, but exactly where 
no one can tell. The peculiar thing about the whole matter, as 
it seems to me, is that it has all come about without any special 
effort on anybody's part to bring it about. The pulpit has not 
preached it to the pews. The pews have not forced it on the 
pulpit. There has been a movement of thought in a certain 
direction which has swept along loth pulpit and pews. Engrossed 
in this movement of thought, the pulpits have ceased to speak 
of some things that were formerly especially prominent ; and 
the conscious and intelligent pews have recognized in the ab- 
sence of certain doctrines from the pulpit a sympathy between 
the pulpit and the pews in reference to those doctrines. And 
so, apparently without consultation, and certainly without any 
proclamation, there is a general consent that certain doctrines 
once held to be true and of vital importance, are to be regarded 
so no longer." 

The " Christian Union" of January 13, 1887, pub- 
lishes a sermon preached hy Rev. G. A. Gordon, 
pastor of the "Old South Church," Boston, from 
which these words are quoted : — 



UNIVERSALISM AND ITS ADVOCATES. 161 

"I am not a Universalist. The Universalist affirms the sal- 
vation of all men. I make no such affirmation. Nevertheless, 
I am as certain as I am of my own existence that, were the sal- 
vation of all men absolutely assured, it would never cut the 
nerve of missions in any mind with a spark of the love of God 
in it. I might go further. T might contend that if we could 
believe in the salvation of all men, it would add fresh incentive 
to the heart of every lover of righteousness the world over. If 
it were certain that God would finally wipe from his universe 
every stain of sin, reclaim every soul, make the rhythm of his 
love flow through all hearts, and cause all the sons of God to 
sing at the consummation of all things, as the morniug stars 
sang together at the beginning ; if it were certain that He should 
at last look forth upon a restored universal order, as He did in 
the dawn of creation, and pronounce it altogether fair and good, 
— every man's zeal whose zeal is for righteousness would thereby 
gain immeasurably. The ultimate goal would be so grand as 
almost to create a soul under the ribs of death. This consum- 
mation is so satisfying to the reason that pleads for unity and 
harmony in this whole system of things, to the conscience that 
would fain postulate the final ascendency of moral law over the 
rational life of the universe, to the affection that would lay 
siege to hell in the hope that it might at last fall into the hands 
of holiness, to the will that would carry its sovereign purpose 
over the whole circle of being, that if we could be certain of it, 
it would add to the missionary motive incalculable strength. 
If I could, I would be a dogmatic Universalist. I should have 
so much more incentive to live for righteousness." 

Quoting this language in the " Universalist," Rev. 
Dr. J. S. Cantwell eloquently says : — 

" And coming from the pastor of the Old South Church, it 
shows the remarkable progress which is going on in the religious 
world, and fast overcoming the prejudices and enmities of the 
past in regard to the Universalist faith, and also the new light 
which is dawning on the Orthodox mind from the principles 

11 



162 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

long maintained and published by our church. Over and over 
again have Universalists held aloft the principle deduced from 
the spirit of the New Testament, that the supreme motive of 
religion and the basis of all true missionary zeal is founded in 
the Eternal Love, as that love is revealed in Christ ; that the 
impulse of activity and devotion in Christian work is not com- 
municated by belief in an eternal hell for the sinner ; that 
efforts for the redemption of the world are not limited or in any 
way embarrassed by the belief in universal salvation ; that 
Universalism, when properly conceived and applied, is a stimulus 
to all Christian activity and beneficence, and that believers in 
this faith found the faith helpful and inspiring in all directions 
of the spiritual life. Now comes one of the most distinguished 
Congregationalists of the country affirming, in almost so many 
words, this preaching of the Universalist faith, and emphasizing 
all our deliverances of a century! Surely the world moves 
nowadays, moves with rapid strides when the Old South Church 
responds with affirmations like these. What more could Mr. 
Gordon say of Universalism if he believed it, — were he what he 
is careful to say he is not, * a dogmatic Universalist ' ? It 
would be difficult for any advocate of the faith to give a more 
glowing testimony to its practical power over the heart, and the 
royal incentive which it brings to its believers, than is furnished 
in these remarkable words." 

It ought to be incredible that any human being 
would be less willing to labor in behalf of man and 
in the service of God, if he regarded his Maker as 
his loving Father and Saviour, and all men as joint- 
heirs with Christ, than when denying these divine 
truths. To say this of one's self is to confess a mer- 
cenary selfishness that must exclude the soul from 
God's kingdom until the bad spirit is exorcised. 



CHAPTER XII. 



CONCLUSION. 



CUCH has been the rate of progress during the last 
century that it might be demonstrated mathemat- 
ically that if the same ratio shall be continued for 
another century the doctrine of endless torment will 
be where that of infant damnation is to-day — re- 
pudiated by every intelligent Christian. When that 
day comes, and men shall rejoice over their emanci- 
pation, the doctrine of Universal Salvation will be 
elevated to its rightful place in the honor and esteem 
of mankind. 

When John Murray landed in New Jersey, in 
1770, the American church was a unit in cherishing 
the dogma of an endless hell, in its most frightful 
form. It was held to be a literal lake of fire and 
brimstone, to burn forever, and to contain the great 
majoritj- of human souls, nine out of every ten at 
least, and sect vied with sect in extravagant efforts 
to describe the horrors of that heathen fable. But 
the new gospel was announced, its glad tidings were 
caught up by kindred souls, and the work of reform 
began. Gradually, as it seemed while the work was 



/ 



164 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

going on, but with wonderful rapidity as we look 
back over the lapse of ten brief decades, the grim 
visage of error has softened ; the leaven of truth has 
permeated the world, until not a sect that was in 
existence when Murray landed in the New World, 
save the Roman Catholic, would to-day be recognized 
should one of the fathers of 1770 come out of his 
grave and listen to the current teachings of his own 
pulpits. 

In 1805, only thirty-five years later, Rev. Hosea 
Ballou published his treatise of the Atonement. At 
that time the Christian Church in all its branches 
regarded Christ as an infinite victim slaughtered to 
appease infinite rage, a substitute for those who 
were to be saved ; that he received the suffering due 
the sinner. Ballou announced the moral view, that 
Christ was the effect and not the cause of God's love 
for sinners, — a theory that has proved so successful 
that not only is it substantial!} 7 the view of Thomas, 
Swing, Bushnell, and the " New Orthodox}'" so- 
called, but it has so far modified the theories of all 
the Protestant sects that the old " butcher theory" 
is rarely or never preached, and is scarcely accepted 
even by those in whose creeds it still retains a place. 
No such revolution in theological opinion was ever 
created in the same length of time by any one man 
as Hosea Ballou has compelled in three-fourths of a 
century on the subject of Atonement. It was not 
till he used the phrase " the fatherhood of God and 



CONCLUSION. 165 

the brotherhood of man," that the immortal sentence 
became current in literature, — a sentiment that is 
now heard in nearly all Christian churches. 

The fact is, the Protestant Church, in all its 
Orthodox branches, is successfully endeavoring to 
slough the monstrous incubus of Latin error im- 
posed on Christianity b} T Augustine, and is trying 
to return to the purity in which Christianity was 
held by Origen and Clement, — a purity derived 
from the original fountain. Professor Allen, in his 
44 Continuity of Christian Thought," declares that 
the trend is away from the despotism and darkness 
of a Latinized Augustinianism, toward the purer 
and genuine form taught by Origen and Clement ; 
in other words, that the modern progress is not 
toward anything new, but is a renascence — is a re- 
turn toward the ancient and original purity of 
Christianity as Jesus taught it. The best presenta- 
tion of that gospel is the Universalistic theolog}'. 

Universalis ts should need no other encouragement 
to push forward the work of religious reform than 
the fact that they are armed with the truth. No 
matter how poor, how feeble, how opposed by 
numbers and worldly influence we may be, the truth 
we have will prove omnipotent against opposition, 
and will annihilate it. Luther lifts his voice against 
the wrong, and millions of voices respond. Murray 
speaks in God's behalf, and a century after, the 
errors of fifteen hundred years' growth are tottering 



166 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

to their fall. Nominally held by thousands, they 
are apologetically retained, and though their old 
forms remain, their vitality has shrunk until the}' are 
the merest simulacra, hollow effigies of what they 
were. Sometimes dead bodies have been exhumed 
that seemed to have been untouched by decay. 
Every lineament of the remembered countenance was 
preserved ; but a few moments of exposure to air 
proved that silent influences had long been at work, 
and had destroyed all the elastic foundations on 
which beauty had sustained its frail fabric, as the 
surface crumbled into unsightly corruption, and a 
horrible cadaver demonstrated that the w r ork of 
decay had been complete. Such is the real condition 
of the great theological horror against which we 
war. A few more breaths of the nineteenth century, 
and men will everywhere turn with disgust from the 
dead body of a once living monstrosity. 

Its proportions are yet formidable to the eye that 
observes only superficially. It reckons its adherents 
\>y millions. Its temples fill all countries. Its advo- 
cates run to and fro, and compass sea and land for 
proselytes. Numerically, materially, it is strong 
compared with ourselves. But after all, "they who 
are with us are more than they who are with them." 
We have allies. " The stars in their courses fought" 
of old against the wrong no more than now, and 
always. It is not a question of numbers that is in- 
volved. The realm of truth is no republic. A show 



CONCLUSION. 167 

of hands does not decide. The right and true are 
always mightier than the wrong and false. 

While our progress, numerically, has been won- 
derful, we are yet in the minority as a sect, but we 
have allies who are steadily flanking our opponents, 
have already, in fact, surrounded them, and are 
rapidly closing in upon them ; and suddenly, as in a 
moment, the confederacy will be no more, as those 
who have upheld it accept the great principles of that 
gospel truth which maketh free indeed. 

Look inside the sacrificial churches. What mul- 
titudes there have ripened into a more genial faith 
than that professed. They have utterly discarded 
the ancient error, and agree heartily with us. What 
multitudes, drawn by social considerations, or led 
thoughtlessly along, apply for admission to those 
churches, and, though entirely frank to say that they 
repudiate all that characterizes the ancient creeds, 
are gladly received. What hosts of clergymen scru- 
pulously weed out all that smacks of " orthodoxy" 
from their pulpit communications, and preach from 
year to year ideas that are wholly at war with the 
doctrines which they nominally represent. Such 
membership, such preaching is steadily undermining 
the old Bastile. They are really foes to the camp 
they occupy. Unwittingly the\ T are preparing the 
churches they sustain for the da}' when the errors on 
which they are built will not be tolerated. 

Look at literature, already spoken of. What spirit 



168 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

animates all the great books, all the works that are 
read ? Who writes a great poem in the interest of 
Orthodoxy? If one were written, who would read it, 
except with disgust? The novels, the poems, the 
philosophy, the books that command readers, the 
literature of our age is Universalis tic. The spirit of 
our faith flows like the unseen currents of the air 
into all hearts, and though the champions of error 
contend against the force of what they are pleased 
to call an unsanctified, an irreligious, an infidel lit- 
erature, their efforts are vain. The melting power 
of modern literature is irresistible. In this drift- 
epoch of the church, as the icebergs of Orthodoxy, 
grounded, feel the mighty influence of the genial 
sun of truth, shining through the warm atmosphere 
of modern literature, they melt, and the future ob- 
server will only know that once they chilled the 
air of this age as the stranded debris is found, 
strewing the track of time ; just as we in the 
temperate latitudes of our own land know that 
once our prairies and hills were covered with ice- 
bergs and glaciers, by the granite bowlders and 
walrus-tusks and other remains that are scattered 
here and there. The world of literature is filled 
with our allies. 

So of science. Not only every step of its progress 
has been contested hy the prominent churches, but 
every discovery, every new development it makes, 
re-enforces the liberal phases of Christianity, and 



CONCLUSION. 169 

compels their opponents to recede more and more 
into the background. 

So of art. Its tendency, like that of science, is to 
the universal. Partialism finds no endorsement in 
any work of modern art. The Dantesque horrors 
that once the brush of Michael Angelo produced are 
only prized for their artistic skill. They no longer 
represent realities, and the art of to-da}^ struggles for 
a higher ideal. Its Christ is not a cadaverous dys- 
peptic ; its saints do not represent the apotheosis of 
filth and rags and gloom ; its heaven is no longer a 
narrow Pantheon, or its hell a material prison. It 
struggles toward the Christian ideal in time and eter- 
nit}^, a cheerful spirit here, and a universal home 
hereafter, presided over by the Universal Father. 

But better still, we have an ally in every intellect, 
and in every heart. Human reason is with us. 
Every dictate of reason is against the errors we op- 
pose. There are multitudes of reasoning men and 
women who retain the false dogmas in which they 
have been reared. That is, they reason on all 
subjects except religion, but professedly and from 
principle taboo the authority and office of this divine 
light where most of all it is needed. Reason is by 
them banished from asserting its sway where its 
voice should always be heard, for it is confessed that 
reason would repudiate the conclusions on which the 
sacrificial churches depend. Is not this a confession 
that we have a mighty corps de reserve in that reason 



170 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

with which God has clothed all souls? Is it not 
an assurance that when its power shall be yielded 
to, as one day it will be, by all Christians, error will 
vanish before it, and our own ideas be univer- 
sally accepted? * Human affection is with us. Not 
that there are not millions of the tenclerest hearts 
that yield assent to the doctrines we reject. But 
those hearts bleed and break while the} 7 accept. 
Every thought is a protest. Every pulsation is a 
pang of detestation. All the tender sympathies of 
human affection are in perfect accord with the teach- 
ings of our faith, and when, at a day not distant, 
those holy pleadings shall not be stifled, when they 
shall be, as they should be, listened to, the old creeds 
will shrivel like parchment in the flame, and the gos- 
pel of universal grace will find congenial soil in every 
heart. The intellect and the affection of man, his 
head and his heart, his reason and his sympathies 
are our allies, and are aiding us as we wage the 
great battle of truth. 

When the prophet of old saw the forces of his en- 
emies surrounding the chy — outnumbering his own 
friends, and to the ordinary eye threatening their 
destruction, he was not intimidated, for as he raised 
his eyes he saw the air full of angelic forms fighting 
against his foes, and he cried out: u Fear not, for 
they that be with us are more than the} r that be 
with them." As we see our allies, in the churches 
nominally arrayed against us, in literature, in art, 



CONCLUSION. 171 

science, the movements of society, the reason and 
affection of humanity, in the veiy air we breathe, 
which is pulsating with invisible agencies at work 
in our behalf, — we find our e} T es opened, and behold 
the " chariots and horsemen of God" flanking, sur- 
rounding our opponents, and we, too, can rejoice as 
we say with the prophet: " Fear not, for the}' that 
be with us are more than the}' that be with them." 

It is related that a party of Captain Parry's Arctic 
explorers once travelled weeks, and, as the}' supposed, 
hundreds of miles, on an immense ice-floe and un- 
known to themselves the floe had drifted southward, 
faster than they had travelled — as it seemed to 
them — northward, so that they were really much 
farther south at the end of their long and tedious 
tramp, than they were at the start. Thus the great 
theological ice-floe has been steadily floating toward 
more genial latitudes, even while its occupants have 
been facing, and as they thought going, in the op- 
posite direction. The ic}' creeds have been dissolv- 
ing in the warm Gulf Stream of progress, till the 
discerning eye can already see that it is a mere ques- 
tion of time when their last vestige shall disappear. 

Or, to change the figure, — when Sir Christopher 
Wren began his preparations to rebuild St. Paul's 
cathedral after the great fire in London, he found 
the stout walls of the old ruin very difficult to throw 
down. He bethought himself of the battering rams 
used by the ancients, and his workmen assaulted the 



172 THE LEAVEN AT WORK. 

walls with blows given by huge beams. Blow after 
blow was given with no apparent effect, but at last 
the structure cracked, tottered, and fell. Then the 
great architect said : " The very first blow, and every 
subsequent blow, though it seemed to accomplish 
nothing, contributed just as much as the last, to the 
destruction of the wall." Let this thought encourage 
all those, however humble, who have ever struck a 
blow for the extirpation of error. Each has done 
something to accelerate the consummation of the 
destruction of the old and the erection of the new 
edifice now rising, and which they have helped to 
build, whether they have toiled at the foundations, or 
shall stand among the exultant multitudes who, as 
they see the headstone of the corner ascend to its 
destined place, shall shout "Grace, grace unto it! " 



INDEX. 



Abbott, Lyman, 101. 

Adam, Dr., 13o. 

Adams, John, 58. 

Advance. Chicago, 55, 107, 121, 130, 

131, 156. 
Advocate, Christian, 43, 156. 
Advocate, Christian, N. YV., 43. 
Advocate, Unitarian, 50. 
Ainsworth, 75. 
Aion, concessions on, 60, 65. 
Akenside, Mark, 81. 
Alarm, Alleine's, 37. 
Albigenses, persecutions, 48. 
Alfor.l. Dean, 144. 
Alger, Hist. Doc Fut. Life, 37, 39. 
Allen, Ethan, 58. 

, Professor, 165. 

Allies of (Jniversalism, 166. 

American Tract Society, 153. 

Ames, Fisher, 58. 

Andover case, 145. 

Andover creed, 13, 102, 103, 104. 

Angelo, Michael, 170. 

Angels, all silent, 127 : fallen, 78. 

Annotations, Dutch, 74. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 44. 

Articles of Religion , Episcopalian, 16 ; 

Methodist, 19, 44. 
Assembly, General, 134 ; Westminster, 

134. 
Atheism, Nat. Hist., 61. 
Atonement, Ballou's, 164. 
Atwood, Rev. Dr. I. M., 57. 
Auburn Declaration, 11. 
Augustine, 44, 60. 
Austin, Dr., 50. 



Bacon, Dr. L. W. , 104, 122. 

Bailey's Eng Diet., 66. 

B*iley, P. J., 83. 

Baillie, Joanna, 81. 

Ballou, Hosea. 164. 

Baptist Church, 15, 85. 

Baptist. National, 111. 

Bate, 76. 

Beausobre and Lenfant, 73, 75. 

Beecher, Catharine, 97- 



Beecher, Edward, 64, 98, 99. 
— , Family, 97. 



, Lyman, 97 

Bellamy, Dr., 51. 
Bennett, Dr. S. F., 83. 
Benson, 78. 
Beza, 74. 

Bibliotheca Sacra, 54, 145, 147. 
Bind in bundles, 75. 
Blackie, J. S., 61, 62. 
Bland, Rev. Mr., 140. 
Blasphemy, Holy Ghost, 75. 
Bonar, Dr. A. A., 136. 
Born again, 76. 
Born, had not been, 76. 
Boston's Fourfold State, 24. 
Bourbonism, Methodist, 44. 
Bo wring, Sir J., 82. 
Bremer, Frederika, 82. 
Brier, Rev. J. YV., 147. 
Bronte sisters, 83. 
Brooke, Stopford, 83. 
Brown, Baldwin, 56. 
Brownell, 78. 
Browning, E. B. , 83. 

, Robert, 83. 

Bryant, W. C.,82. 

Buchanan, Robert, 83. 

Bunyan, John, 48. 

Burnet, Bishop, 48, 80. 

Burns, Robert, 81. 

Bushnell, Rev. Horace, D. D., 164 

Butler, Archer, 48. 



, Bishop, 81. 

Byron, Lady, 55. 
, Lord, 82. 



Caird, Principal J., 126. 

Calmet, 76. 

Calvinism, Methodism, and Univer- 

salism, 156. 
Calvin, John, 22. 
Campbell, Alexander, 60. 

, George, 65, 75. 

Candlish, Professor, 136. 
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 139. 



174 



INDEX. 



Cantwell, Rev. J. S., D.D., 161. 

Capernaum, brought to hell, 75. 

Cappe, 74, 77. 

Carpenter, Mary, 83. 

Cary sisters, 84. 

Case, Rev. H. M., 124. 

Cast into fire, 73. 

Catechism, Larger, 10 ; Shorter, 10. 

Catholic Church, 20. 

Catholic Declarations, 44. 

Challis, James, 63. 

Chapin, Dr. E. H., 122. 

Christian at Work, 106. 

Christlieb, 110, 119. 

Christ's descent into hell, 144. 

Church, Dean, 137. 

Clarke, Dr. A., 73-77. 

Clement, 165. 

Clephane, Eliz., 83. 

Coleridge, S. T. , 82. 

Commentators, concessions of, 73. 

Common sense and religion, 97- 

Concessions, more explicit, 130. 

Concessions on vital words, etc., 59. 

Conclusion, 163. 

Confession, fourteen ways of, 18. 

Confession of Faith, Savoy, 11, 12 124. 

Confession, Philadelphia, 16 ; West- 
minster, 8; Winchester, 21. 

Congregational Church, 31, 106. 

Congregationalism defined, 123, 126. 

Congregational ministers' opinions, 
109. 

Congregational National Council, 15. 

Congregationalists, English, 119, 126. 

Congregationalist, The, 104, 106, 109, 
141. 

Consensus of commentators, 73. 

Continuity of Christian Thought, 165. 

Cook, Joseph, 70, 105, 106. 

Cowles, 78. 

Cowper, William, 51. 52. 

Creator and creature, 61. 

Creeds, Catholic, 20. 

Creeds, evil influence of, 46. 

Creeds explained, 18. 

Creeds, indorsements of, 22. 

Creeds, the Congregational, 11-15 : 
Methodist, 19 : Presbyterian, N S., 
11 ; Presbyterian, O. S., 7-10 ; Uni- 
versalis, 21 ; Wesleyan, 19. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 80. 

Crosby, Arthur, D. D., 133. 

, Howard. D. D., 133. 

Cudworth, Ralph, 80. 

Cunningham, Allan, 81. 

Cuyler, T. L.,D. D.,30. 



Dale, Rev. Dr. , 110, 119. 
Damnation, Greater, 75 ; Resurrection 
of, 77. 



Damned, believeth not, 76. 

Dante, 45. 

Darkness, outer, 74. 

Davis, J. D., 27. 

Day of Doom, 34. 

Day of wrath, 77. 

Death, sin unto, 78 ; the second, 78. 

Deems, Dr., 62. 

Defoe, Daniel, 80. 

Delitzsch, 70. 

Depart from me, 74. 

De Quincey, Thomas, 82. 

Destroy soul and body, 75. 

Destruction, everlasting, 77; of the 

world, 78. 
De Vita, 61,65. 
Dickens, Charles, 83. 
Die in your sins, 77. 
Dietelmair, 145. 
Diman, Prof. J. L., 120, 158. 
Diodati, 74. 
Dives and Lazarus, 76. 
Doddridge, Dr. P., 73, 76. 
Doederlein, 153. 
Dorner, 70. 
Doudas. George D., 136. 

, Neil, 91. 

Du Moulin, Dr. L.. 45. 



Edwards, Jona., 32, 141. 

Elsley, 77. 

Kminons, Dr. N., 34. 

Emerson, K. W., 83. 

Kndureth to the end, 74. 

Episcopal Church, open question, 

140; expunged article, 91. 
Episcopal Creed, 16 ; Prayer-book, 

138. 
Erskine, Thomas, 82, 153. 
Evangelist, N. Y. , IbO, 136, 140, 145. 
Ever and ever, 71, 72. 
Everlasting punishment, 76. 
Everlasting, the word, 59, 64, 70. 



Faber, F. W.,61. 

Fairbairn, Dr., 116. 

Farrar, F. W., 41, 42, 57, 61, 65, 75, 
83, 138, 153. 

Fatherhood, God's, 117 : denied, 85. 

Ferguson, Dr. Fergus, 126. 

Festus, 83. 

Fire and Brimstone, 78. 

Fire, cast into, 73; eternal vengeance 
of, 78; furnace of, 71. 75: lake of, 
71 : literal, 141 : unquenchable, 74. 

Fisher, Professor G. P., 158. 

Forever and ever, 60. 

Forgiven, not to be, 75. 

Foster, Bishop, 115. 



INDEX. 



175 



Foster, John, 82. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 58. 



Galileo, 117. 
Gardiner, D., 136. 
Gate, the strait, 74. 
Gault, 136. 
Gehenna, 65, 66. 
Gerhard, 45. 
Gill, 75. 
Gilpin, 74, 75. 
Gladden, Dr. W., Ill, 113. 
Gnashing of teeth, 74, 75. 
Gomorrah, Sodom and, 74. 
Good, not been born, 76. 
Gordon, Rev. G. A., 160. 
Graves, H. C, 118. 
Greeley, Horace, 83. 
Greene, Nathaniel, 57. 
Gregory, President, 115. 

, Thaumaturgus, Saint, 152. 

Greyson Letters, 54. 
Gridley, Richard, 57. 
Griswold, II. T.,83. 
Grotius, 75. 



Hades, concessions on, 67 ; meaning 

of, 68, 70. 
Hall, Dr. John, 29. 
Hamlin, Rev. Cyrus, D. D., 147. 
Hammond, 73, 78. 
Haweis, 77. 
Heathen lost, 26-28. 
Heathen views superior, 149. 
Heaven, kingdom of, 73-75. 
Hell, cast into, 74: Capernaum in. 

75 ; child of, 76 ; damnation of, 76 ; 

destroy soul and body, 75 ; fire, 74 ; 

rich man in, 76. 
Henry, 74. 

Herald and Presbyter, 121. 
Herald, New York, 120. 
Herald, Zion's, 43, 155. 
Hesychius, 60, 75. 
Heylin, 74. 

Hodge, Professor, 27, 67, 92, 107, 131. 
Holland, Rev. Dr. R. A., 42, 139. 
Holmes, Dr. 0. W., 83, 143. 
Homiletic Monthly, 115. 
Hopkins, Dr. Samuel, 33. 
Home, 76. 
House fell, 74. 
Huidekoper, Professor, 145. 
Hume, Rev. Mr., 149. 
Hunt, Leigh, 82. 



Impossible to renew, 77. 
Independent, The New York, 108. 



Indorsements of creeds, 22. 
Infant salvation, 107. 
Infant torments iu hell, 34. 
Ingelow, Jean, 83. 
Ingersoll, Robert, 136. 
Interior, The Chicago, 28, 132. 
Introductory, iii. 



Jack sox, Rev. Mr., 154. 

Jahn, Dr., 63. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 57. 

Jenks, Rev. Dr., 95. 

Jerome, Saint, 152. 

Jewish testimony on Gehenna, 66, 67. 

Johnson, Dr. S., 81. 

Jones, 74. 

Journal and Messenger, 86. 

Journal, Chicago, 156. 

Judas, 116. 

Judgment, after this, 77: eternal, 

77 ; to come, 77 ; Watts's Day of, 50 ; 

without mercy, 77. 



Reach, Benjamin, 36. 
Keble, 49. 
Kenrick, 73-77. 
Kingsley, Charles, 77, S< 
Knapp, Dr., 67. 
Knatchbull, 75. 
Kurtz, Prof. J. H.,145. 



Ladd, Prof. G. T.,123. 

Lake of fire and brimstone, 78. 

Lamb, Charles, 82. 

Lambert, Rev. Brooke, 137. 

Landslide into Universalism, 117. 

Lange, 71, 107. 

Lapide, Cornelius a, 45. 

Lardner, 74. 

Lasker, Rabbi R., 66. 

Law, William, 81. 

Leader, Christian, 101 

Leckie, Rev. Dr. Joseph, 126. 

Leland. Rev. John, 156. 

Lewis, Tayler, 64, 144. 

Liberal " Orthodox'- preaching, 38. 

Lightfoot, 73. 

Likewise perish, 76. 

Lilienthal, Rabbi, 67. 

Lindsay, Professor, 136. 

Literature, Influence of, 79. 

Locker, 77. 

Lombard, Peter, 44. 

Longfellow, H. W., 83. 

Lose his soul, 75. 

Love, Christopher, 24. 

Lowell, J. R.,83. 

Luther, Martin, 23, 65. 

Lytton, R. B., 83. 



176 



INDEX. 



Macdoxald, George, 83, 110, 111, 114. 
119. 

Macknight, 60, 74, 78. 

Macleod, Norrnau. Dr., 83. 

Macrae, Rev. David, 133 

Majority, lost, 96 ; saved, 107 

Mary, Bloody, 48. 

Massey, Gerald, 83. 

Maurice, F. D , 83, 152._ 

Mercv and judgment, 65. 

Meredith, Rev. Dr , 96. 

Merriam, Rev. Mr.. 111. 

Merrill, Bishop S. H , 69, 87. 

Methodism drifting into Universalis™ , 
140. 

Methodist, catechism, 89 ; creed unal- 
terable, 44; Episcopal creed, 19, 
142. 

Mill, John S , 56. 

Milman, Dean, 56. 

Milton, John, 80. 

Minos, 47. 

Missionary nerve, 161. 

Missions, American Board, 37, 140. 

Moody, 116. 

More, Thomas, 82. 

Mosheim, 152. 

Moslem views superior, 147. 

Muloch, Dinah, 83. 

Munger, Rev. T. T., Ill, 112. 

Murrav, Rev. John, 91, 163. 



Naturalist, The, 88. 

Newhall, F. H.,43. 

Newton, Rev. Dr. Heber, 42. 139. 

, Sir Isaac, 80. 

Nightingale, Florence, 84 
Northrup, President, 111, 159. 



Olive Branch, The, 154. 
Olshausen, 60. 
O'Reilley, Bishop, 20. 
Origen, 79, 152, 153-165. 
Otis, James, 57. 
Outer Darkness, 74. 



Pagan, guilt of, 54. 
Paige : s Selections, 73. 
Paley, 115. 
Parkhurst, 74. 
Parkhursfs Lexicon, 66. 
Park, Professor, 37, 122. 
Parry, Capt., 171. 
Patterson. Dr. R. W., 26. 
Patton, Prof. F. W., 29, 30, 132. 

, Dr. W. W., 54, 55, 153. 

Pearce, 73-78. 
Perdition, Son of, 77. 
Perish likewise, 76. 



Persecution, Catholic, 49. 

Place, his own, 77. 

Pollok, Robert, 25. 80. 

Pond, Rev. Dr. , 121. 

Prayer-book, Episcopal, 138. 

Presbyterian Church softening. 132. 

Presbyterian ministers reject creed, 

136. 
Presbyterian Weekly, 30. 
Presbytery, Glasgow. 136. 
Princeton Review, 27. 
Probation after breath, 105; earth 

the only, 106 ; post-mortem, 144. 
Procter, Adelaide, 83. 
Punishment, everlasting, 76. 
Purvis, 91. 

Pusey, Rev. Dr., 106. 
Pyle, 78. 



Quarterly, Methodist, 116. 
Quarterly, S. S. Teacher's, ( 



Ravignan, Pere, 106. 

Reade, Charles, 83. 

Religion of common sense, 97. 

Relley, 91. 

Renew, impossible to, 77. 

Retribution, History of Future, 64. 

Review, Andover, 142. 149. 

Review, Evangelical, 145. 

Review, North American, 104, 121. 

Review, Princeton, 27. 

Rhadamanthus, 47. 

Richards, Rev. C. H , 119. 

Righteous scarcely snved, 77. 

Robinson, John, 31, 93. 

Rogers, Henry. 54. 

, Samuel. 82. 

Rosenmiiller, 74-78. 
Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 81, 84. 



Sand, George, 55. 

Sargent, YVinthrop, 57. 

Saurin's Lament, 49. 

Saved, etc., 74 ; What to do to be, 77; 

scarcely, 77. 
Sawyer, Rev. Dr. T. J., 101, 121. 
Scepticism, cause of, 85. 
Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, 11, 107; 

Harmonv. etc. . 24. 
Schaff, Professor P., 153. 
Schleusner, 60, 66. 
Scotch liberalitv, 12S, 129; opinions. 

128, 129. 
Scott, 76. 
Scripture Retribution, History of, 64, 

98, 99. 
Shairp, Principal, 153. 
Shall not enter heaven, 74. 



INDEX. 



177 



Shaw, Rev. Mr., 23. 
Shedd, Prof. W. G. T, 53, 113 
Shelley, P. B., 82. 
Sheol, concessions on, 69. 
Sherwood, Mrs., 82. 
Sin unto death, 78. 
Sismondi's testimony, 48. 
Smith, Dr. T. S., 82. 

, Rev. Dr. W. C.,127. 

Smoke of torment, 78. 
Smyth, Egbert, Rev. , 111. 

, Julian R., Rev. Dr., 157. 

, Prof. Newman, 104, 111, 146. 

Sodom and Gomorrah, 74. 
Son of Man coming, 75. 
Son of Perdition, 77 
Soul, lose his, 75. 
Southey, Robert, 82. 
Spalding, Archbishop, 20. 

, Josiah, 36. 

Spring, Gardiner, 26. 

Spurgeon, Rev. C, 38, 118. 

Standard, The Chicago, 85, 117. 

Stemming the current, 85. 

Stephen, Leslie, 55. 

Stowe, Harriet B., 83, 101. 

Strait gate, 74. 

Strowbridge, T. R., 43. 

Stuart, Prof. Moses, 51, 102. 

Sumner, Charles, 83. 

Sun, New York, 120, 121. 

Swing, Prof. David, 28, 104, 132, 164. 



Tartarus, concessions on, 69. 
Taylor, Isaac, 49. 

, Jeremy. 39. 

, Ross, 136. 

Tenney, Dr., 50. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 83. 

Tertullian, 47. 

Testimony to evil of creeds, 46 

Thackeray, W. M., 83. 

Thayer, Prof. F. H., 103, 149. 

Theological School, Chicago, ir5. 

Theophylact, 76. 

Thomas, Rev. Dr. H. W., 164. 

Thomson, James, 81. 

Toplady, 24. 

Townsend, 74-78 

Townshend, C. H., 82. 

Trench, Archbishop, 67. 

Trend, The, 91. 

Tucker, Rev. J T., 106. 

Twisse, Rev. William, 24. 



Union, The Christian, 63, 101, 110, 
112, 132, 146, 160. 

Union, The Church, 131, 147. 

Universalism, character of, 152; in- 
fluence of, 111 ; prevalent in early 
ages, 98. 

Universalist, The, 161. 

Universalists, character of, 152 ; creed, 
21. 

Unquenchable fire, 74. 

Uttermost farthing, 74. 



Vane, Sir Harry, 80. 
Vengeance of eternal fire, 78. 
Vessels of wrath, 77. 
Virgins, Foolish, 76. 



Wakefield, 74-78. 

Warburton, Bishop, 62. 

Watts, Dr. I., 40, 50, 61,81. 

Webber, Rev. Dr ,158. 

Weekly, Illustrated Christian, 67. 

Wesleyan, Methodist, 19; catechism, 

19. 
Wesleyans, English, 126. 
Wesley, Charles, 41. 

, John, 42. 

Westcott, Canon, 152. 

West, Rev. Robert, 156. 

Wetstein, 73, 74. 

Whateley, Archbishop, 63. 

Whedon, Dr., 116. 

Whitby, 73-78. 

White, Jeremy, 80. 

Whiton, Rev. Dr. , 110. 

Whittier, John G., 83, 114. 

Wigglesworth, Michael. 34. 

Winchester, Elhanan, 91. 

Windet, 60, 65. 

Winslow's narrative, 93. 

Winthrop, Theodore, 83. 

Wise, Rabbi, 66. 

Woods, Rev. Dr., 64. 

Words and phrases, 59. 

Wordsworth, William, 82. 

World, Destruction of, 78. 

World, London Christian, 126, 136, 

150. 
World, This, and to come, 75. 
Wrath, day of, 77 ; of the Lamb, 78 ; 

to come, 73 ; vessels of, 77. 
Wren, Sir Christopher, 172. . 
Wynne, 74, 75. 



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